


Faithful Unto Death

by idelthoughts, Spacecadet72



Series: Forever Fugitive [1]
Category: Forever (TV), The Fugitive
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Case Fic, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Gen, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-11 22:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 44,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4454147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/pseuds/idelthoughts, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacecadet72/pseuds/Spacecadet72
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry Morgan, New York emergency room doctor and father to his elderly son Abe, whom he raised from infancy as a single father, finds life changing when he meets Abigail. They have a whirlwind romance and are married, but it’s all cut short when she’s murdered and Henry is falsely convicted of the crime. Henry escapes before he’s imprisoned, and now a hunted fugitive, he sets out on a crusade to find out who killed Abigail. However, he has to contend with one Detective Martinez, who is on the case to bring him back to justice.  <i>A Forever/The Fugitive fusion AU.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> You don't need to have seen The Fugitive to read this, we just borrowed the scenario for our nefarious purposes. Abigail, we're sorry we fridged you.
> 
>  _Fidelis ad mortem_ , or Faithful Unto Death, is the motto of the NYPD.

The door to the antiques store opened, the bell jingled, and Abe sighed, his shoulders dropping. He had just been going to lock the door for the night, but had gotten distracted by the arrangement of a display in the back.

“We’re closed!” he shouted to whoever had walked into the shop, hoping they would leave without making a fuss. He’d been planning on starting dinner soon.

“Even for me?”

Abe straightened up as he turned to face Henry, who was standing in the middle of the shop, his hands in his pockets, a large grin on his face. His father had always had a thing for dramatic entrances.

Abe waved him in with a smile, and after making sure the door was locked, headed into the kitchen.

“I was just about to make dinner, if you wanted to join me,” he called over his shoulder as he pulled spice containers and a cookbook from the cupboard above the stove.

He turned just in time to see Henry standing by the edge of the room, shaking his head.

“Abigail’s still at work, but I’m meeting her for dinner soon. I thought I’d stop by, since we’ve been so busy at the hospital for the past few weeks.”

Abe moved over to open the far cabinet and grabbed two tea cups and the jar of tea leaves.

“If you can’t stay for dinner, how about a cup of tea?” he asked, already filling up the kettle with water.

Henry paused by the chess board set up on a nearby table on his way to the kitchen. He moved his black rook three spaces forward, then continued on into the kitchen to join Abe.

“Damn, I hoped you’d forget about that.” Abe said. He’d have Abe in the next three moves unless Abe could think of a fancy way out of Henry’s trap.

“It would be rude of me not to take my turn,” Henry said, not so subtly gloating over his advantage.

Abe just shook his head and turned his attention back to the kettle. Once the kettle was on the stove, Abe cleared his throat.

“Anyway, I'm glad you're here, I was going to talk to you. I want you to have the credenza. Well,” Abe acknowledged with a tilt of his head, “have the credenza back.”

Henry paused, his expression turning soft.

“Abraham, I know how much you were hoping to sell it.”

Abe waved him off and shook his head.

“I can always pick up something else at an estate sale. Give those Berkowitz brothers a run for their money. I thought it would be perfect for the dining room. It’s not everyday my dad gets married.”

Henry grinned, his face lighting up.

“No, you’re right. It isn’t.”

Henry still looked like he was floating on air from the wedding three weeks ago. Abigail had looked so beautiful in her white dress, and neither she nor Henry could keep from smiling so wide that Abe was sure it must have hurt later. Abe had sat in his seat and watched as they danced their first dance as husband and wife, and wondered for a moment where Maureen was now. He’d had pushed that thought to the back of his mind, knowing it wasn’t a road he needed to go down.

Henry had been alone for too long. Decades, at the very least. Abe had never seen his dad as happy with anyone as he was with Abigail. He and Henry had had a good life, an interesting life, but as much as Henry tried to hide it, Abe had seen how lonely he had been.

It didn’t hurt that Abe liked Abigail too. She was so full of life and energy. It was comforting to know as he watched them that day that he wasn’t the only one looking after Henry anymore, that she would be there if he wasn’t.

She forced Henry out of his shell, forced him to be the man they both knew he really was, around them and around others. When had he ever known Henry to laugh so much, to let go and enjoy himself as much as he did with Abigail?

 

_Henry placed his hands over Abigail’s as they cut the cake, both of them paying much more attention to each other than what they were doing. Before Abigail picked up her small piece between her fingers, she leaned up to press a quick kiss to his lips, both of their smiles wider as they pulled apart._

_Henry’s smile remained, even as he opened his mouth and leaned forward, even as Abigail brought the piece of cake up and smashed most of it onto the side of his mouth, some of it catching in his beard, the white of the cake and frosting in contrast with the dark hair. Abe joined the rest of the small crowd in their laughter, clapping a few times at the look on Henry’s face as he stiffened in surprise and Abigail giggled._

_Abigail’s eyes widened as in the next moment, there was cake on her face and Henry was laughing, his eyes bright and his lips and beard smeared with frosting and crumbs._

_She swallowed her bite of cake, and then leaned up to really kiss him, all sticky and disgusting, both of their mouths covered in frosting. They pulled back, both of them laughing along with the crowd, a bridesmaid rushing forward with napkins for them to clean up._

 

The kettle whistled, pulling Abe back to the present. Henry was already up, pouring the water into the teapot.

They talked about the trivial things that made up the days since they’d seen each other last, sipping tea and sharing stories about what a fellow doctor had said or a customer had asked. Abe hadn’t realized just how much you miss when someone moves out, even if it was just blocks away.

Abe’s phone beeped, and he reached over to check the notification.

_If Henry’s still with you, could you tell him I’m home?_

“Abigail wants you to know that she’s home. You know, this would be a lot easier if you had one of these,” he said as he typed a quick reply.

“They’re not necessary, Abe.”

“Except when they’re someone else’s,” Abe muttered.

“I don’t need to be that connected and at the same time that distant from those around me,” he said, his tone sharp.

This was an old argument, and Abe didn’t need to look up to be able to exactly picture the look of judgement on Henry’s face. He set the phone down and looked back up at Henry. Yep, there it was. He shook his head with a snort. He was fond of his father, so set in his ways on some subjects.

“Go on, you’d better get moving.”

“Are you sure? I know I haven’t seen you in a while given how busy we’ve been with the ER room being temporarily short-staffed and all the extra shifts.”

Henry looked so torn, Abraham just huffed out a laugh and gestured for him to go.

“Don’t worry about me. You don’t want to make your wife wait.”

Henry’s grin only widened at Abe’s use of the word “wife” and after a hug and a promise to visit again soon, Henry was out the door. With an affectionate shake of his head, Abe went to clean up their tea cups.

He put both of the cups in the sink but didn’t bother with dishes. He’d just have to clean up again after he made dinner.

It wasn’t until after he’d eaten and put everything away that he spotted Henry’s doctor’s bag leaning against the corner of the couch.

“Always forgetting something,” he muttered, but his smile never left as he went to pick it up. He checked his watch. It was still early and Henry would need it for work the next morning. He’d drop it off, say hi to Abigail and they could all avoid the panicked phone call early tomorrow.

He threw the bag in the passenger seat, and pushed back the twinge of frustration. It wasn’t that long of a drive really, and he wouldn’t mind the chance at a short visit with either of them. Much better than a trip to the river, after all. He switched out the tapes in the tape deck and began humming quietly along to the jazz number that filled the car. Soon enough he was to their block, just as the second song was ending.

Abe stopped humming, his mouth opening slowly, as he pulled onto their street and saw the whole block lit up with flashing red and blue lights. Police cars and an ambulance were parked in front of Henry and Abigail’s apartment and Abe felt his heart stop.

No. What could possibly….

He pulled over at the next available stretch of curb and jumped out as soon as the car was shut off, running towards the crowd.

“Excuse me, officer, what’s going on?” Abe asked the police woman standing in front of the caution tape.

The officer opened her mouth to speak, but Abe didn’t wait for the answer. He ran to get closer to the apartment as Henry walked out the front door.

Henry was missing his suit jacket, and his dress shirt was torn and covered in blood. His eyes were wet, his gaze unfocused as he was escorted out of the apartment by two officers, both of them looking grim and determined. Abe was about to shout Henry’s name, try to get his attention, when he glanced over by the ambulance and saw the stretcher being loaded into the back. Whoever was on it was completely covered by a sheet. Small, still, a wisp of blonde hair visible from beneath the edge of the sheet.

Abe’s hand flew up to cover his mouth.

_Abigail._


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter every Tuesday.

The police department photographed Henry from every conceivable angle; his hands, the streaks of blood up his forearms, the dress shirt, the smear of Abigail’s blood dried and flaking on his chin where he’d cradled her to him.

After swabs, samples, and photographs, he was taken to an empty room and left alone. A fingerprinted, streaked two-way mirror took up one wall, and in it he could see his own reflection.

Her blood was everywhere. They’d let him wash, taken his damaged and soaked dress shirt and left him in his undershirt, which was stained through with the dark brown marks of her blood. He looked away, putting a hand over his eyes to block out the image, leaning an elbow on the edge of the table.

The interrogation room was replaced by the bedroom. He kept cycling back there, like his mind was caught in a loop, forcing him back into the moment no matter how much he wanted to leave it.

_“Abigail? Abigail, talk to me. Darling, talk to me.”_

_She was bleeding, the hole in her chest impossible to close. He leaned on her and held his jacket over the wound. She reached up for him, her eyes already dull, and her nails raked his skin as she tried to grasp hold of him. She caught him on the cheek and along his neck._

_“Henry…”_

Henry tugged at his beard, pulling at the hair until his eyes watered, as though that small sharp pain would be enough to distract him from the memories.

He couldn’t say how long it was before the door opened and two men walked in. They introduced themselves. Detectives Rodriguez and Walker, both sporting bad suits and worse haircuts, looking like the night shift had put them through the wringer. Walker reeked of cigarette smoke and Rodriguez clutched two coffees, one of which he slid in front of Henry. It was black as tar and looked like it had been sitting on the hotplate for most of the day. Henry didn’t touch it.

“Dr. Morgan,” Rodriguez said, “We’re going to ask you a few questions, get some info on tonight. Okay?”

Henry nodded, tugging at his beard and trying to concentrate. The image of Abigail kept slipping over his vision, blurring out the interrogation room, and he couldn’t quite hold onto the present. He straightened in his chair and shook himself.

“Yes. Yes, please go ahead.”

Rodriguez shot a look at Walker, who sipped on his own coffee and said nothing.

“Okay, so you told the officer on the scene you heard a shot.”

“That’s right. As I was coming up the walk.”

_From inside the house, a bang. A choked scream, and a slam. Henry froze, key in the front door lock._

_“Abigail?” he shouted._

“You have a gun in the house?”

_Henry rattled the lock frantically, finally managing to get through the door. His dress shoes slid on the entranceway flooring._

“Dr. Morgan, do you have a gun in the house?”

Henry sucked in a sharp breath, suddenly registering Rodriguez’ question, and then shook his head.

“No, no gun.”

Abigail detested them. Not that Henry was particularly a fan, but her aversion had been notable. He couldn’t blame her, after her experiences with Doctors Without Borders, which had involved a fair bit more action than she deserved to have seen—it wasn’t as though she’d signed up for the military. Henry had never wanted to own one, so it hadn’t been an issue. He’d never understood why a person would feel safer with a weapon nearby when it could so easily be turned on its owner.

Walker leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out underneath the table and crossing them at the ankles.

“That bullet had to come from somewhere,” he grunted, and then took another sip of his coffee.

“I imagine the intruder brought the gun with him,” Henry said.

Rodriguez glanced at Walker, then back to Henry.

“So where were you before you before you got home?”

“A friend’s. Abe.”

“What’s his full name?” Rodriguez asked.

“Abraham Morgan.”

“Relative?”

“Oh—no. Coincidence. An old friend, known him for years.”

Henry fell into their standard story, the vague smile and smooth words that rolled out as part and parcel of the tale. It was strangely comforting to be back on solid ground of some sort, though Walker’s droop-eyed blank stare deflated the brief sense of normality and brought him quickly back into the dreary present. Rodriguez grunted, making notes in his file. As Henry saw Abe’s name being written down in cheap ballpoint ink on the yellow notepad, he felt a stir of concern behind his shock and grief, this one an old paranoia that was a familiar friend.

It was only occurring to Henry now that this situation was going to lead to questions, investigations, interviews of people in his life, his workplace, those who had known him these last four years. The origami construct that was his life previous to that was going to be put to the test, and he had no idea whether it could stand up to such inspection.

He looked down and his gaze stalled on a streak of blood on the back of his hands. He’d missed it when he was scrubbing himself in the sink as a uniformed officer held the door, supervising him.

_He raced into the house, headed for the office where she usually worked at this time of night. From the second story, a thump. The thud of footfalls. Henry skidded to a halt, staring up above him. He reversed direction, scrambling for the stairs._

_“Abigail!” he shouted. “Answer me!”_

_The bedroom door was open, and as he charged through he saw the parting flicker of a man leaving through the bedroom french doors that led to the balcony with the spiral stairs down to the garden patio below._

_He was about to run out and follow when a movement from behind, between the bed and the wall caught his eye. He whirled around. Blood on the wall, a hand. No, no—_

“Dr. Morgan, the sooner we get through these questions, the sooner we’re all gonna get a little rest tonight, okay?”

Henry blinked, snapping back to Rodriguez.

“Yes—sorry. Sorry. What was the question?”

“This guy you said you saw.”

“Yes?”

“What can you tell me?”

Henry shook his head, trying to think of anything that would help. There wasn’t much. He’d had just a glimpse. He closed his eyes and tried to picture it again. Turn away from the blood, and Abigail’s pale hand clutching the bedspread. To the door, to the shape of the man—

“He was shorter than me, I think, perhaps just a little. The top of his head aligned with the top window frame inset in the french doors to the balcony, which would make him approximately 5’10’’, perhaps 5’11”? Slight build, though not thin exactly. Dark hair.”

He ran the memory over again, but it was so brief. There was nothing more to be had, and each time he tried to replay it, his thoughts were ever stronger sucked back into the dark hole of rounding the bed to see Abigail on the floor.

_“Oh no. No, please no.”_

_Henry dropped to his knees, tearing off his jacket and wadding it up against the wound on Abigail’s chest. She was still conscious, but barely, and she rolled her eyes towards Henry._

_“Henry. Had a gun,” she choked, her voice weak. “You—Henry…”_

_She coughed and it was bloody and wet. Henry clenched his teeth, trying not to hyperventilate._

_“Shh, shh. It’s alright. It’ll be okay, don’t try to talk.”_

Henry realized his face was wet and he drew in a breath, wiping at his eyes. Again, he saw the smear of blood on his hand and he paused, his hand caught in mid-air.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Whatever their investigation brought up, however close they came to his secrets, it was worth it to know that the murderer would be found and put in jail. Whoever this vague outline of a man was, he had to be brought to justice for what he’d done.

“And you said he left through the balcony, down the back stairs?”

“That’s right,” Henry said with a nod.

Walker made a doubtful noise.

“Which way did he go after he got out of the house?” Walker asked.

“I don’t know, I didn’t see,” Henry said, shaking his head. “I tried to stop Abigail’s bleeding, I didn’t follow him.”

“She made a 911 call. Did you know that?”

_Her cell phone fell from her limp hand, hitting the carpet with a thud when he finally scooped her up, holding her to his chest, keening as he rocked with her. She was gone. The tinny voice shouting for his attention barely registered._

“I didn’t realize until the police arrived. I was trying to stop the bleeding.”

“Yeah. Right. We’ve got the transcript.”

Henry nodded, and Rodriguez made another note on his pad of paper. Only then did Henry realize that he’d not written down anything of Henry’s description of the intruder. He frowned, looking from Rodriguez to Walker. Both of them were watching him with blank expressions, as though waiting for something.

“You and your wife got on well?”

“What?” Henry stumbled for an answer, confused by the abrupt shift. “Yes—yes, of course. Of course we did.”

“Not married long, though.”

“No, a few weeks.”

“No honeymoon?”

“No, we decided to put it off until we could both take time together. The hospital schedule—”

“No arguments?”

“No, we—”

“Never had a fight? Maybe things got a bit heated now and again?” Rodriguez pressed, leaning forward on the table. “She was a pretty girl, smart. What, ten years younger than you? Girl like that probably has a lot of friends.”

Henry shook his head, shifting in his chair, his stomach clenching.

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to—”

“Looks like you kept to yourself. No friends to speak of, so far as we can tell. This Abe guy, that’s it? But her, popular girl. Can make a person a little jealous, all that attention.”

“No, it wasn’t like that at all.”

Rodriguez gestured towards him with the end of his pen.

“Those are some nasty scratches, Doc.”

Henry lifted his fingers to his neck and touched the trail of smarting scratches Abigail had left as she’d tried to reach for him, her vision and strength already fading.

“She was frightened,” he said, and swallowed hard. “I was trying to—”

“Mm-hm. You ever get angry with her?”

“What? No, that’s—”

“Maybe think she needed to learn a lesson?”

“Stop it,” Henry said, his voice shaking. “I would never—”

“Ever hit Abigail before?”

“No! Stop it!” Henry said, slamming a hand on the table, his frantic temper bursting like a bubble. “Let me finish!”

He knew it was a mistake the moment Rodriguez dropped his pen to the table and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms. Walker sighed heavily and set his half-empty coffee cup on the table.

“You want to tell us again what happened, Doc?” Walker drawled. “Where did you hide the gun?”

“No, I didn’t—I didn’t kill her.” Henry shook his head in helpless denial, imploring them to understand. “There was a man in our house, he shot her. He was there.” Henry tapped the top of the table with a finger. “He was _there_. You have to find him, you have to…”

He might as well have been talking to a stone wall. Rodriguez and Walker had ceased to listen to him.

 

\-----

 

_"...Morgan is accused of killing his wife in their Manhattan home in April..."_

Abe looked up at the familiar news broadcast to see video of Henry leaving the courthouse, mobbed by the press and followed closely by his lawyer. The news footage was the only time he got to see Henry now.

"So sad, isn't it?"

Abe turned his attention away from the TV to look at the convenience store clerk. He nodded and grunted in response, but didn't say anything.

"They'd only been married a few weeks, too," the clerk continued as she rang up his items and shook her head. "And she was so young."

She would have been twenty-seven in November. Henry had already begun preliminary planning for her birthday before this had all started. Abe had teased him about getting such an early start. 

_“I want it to be perfect,_ " Henry had said. " _It never hurts to plan ahead."_

"It's a shame she couldn’t get out before it ended like this. Those kind of men are so good at pretending to be something they're not. Until it's too late." The clerk finished with a sigh and another shake of her head.

"Trial's not over yet. He's pleading not guilty," Abe said, his tone sharp.

"You seriously believe he's innocent?" She sounded surprised. "Guy's a creep. I bet she wasn’t his first, either. Wife or murder." She said it with a practiced air, as if this wasn’t the first time she’d said it. Abe knew it probably wasn’t.

Abe grabbed his bag of snacks off the counter.

"Keep the change," he ground out before heading out of the store.

This had become an unfortunately familiar interaction. Henry’s case was being broadcast nationally, and a murder, especially one with spouses as the victim and accused, was always the first topic of conversation.

He hadn’t thought months ago when he had showed up at Henry and Abigail’s house to emergency vehicles and flashing lights that it would lead to this. Even later, when he was being questioned by the police, he thought he would answer their questions and they would find the man who killed her. He hadn’t realized at first that the detectives thought that they already had.

_“Mr. Morgan, we just have a few questions to ask you,” Detective Rodriguez said as he joined his partner at the interrogation table._

_Abe nodded. He’d once told Henry that there wasn’t anyone who had lived a life more interesting than they had. He had meant it as a positive, as a way to bring his father out of his latest guilt-ridden funk. But this.… He wished for something a little more mundane than a murder._

_He wasn’t sure how long this whole process would take, but he already planned on making the guest bed up for Henry after they left the station. Even if his bedroom wasn’t a crime scene, he shouldn’t have to be alone._

_“You were with Dr. Morgan prior to the murder, is that correct?”_

_Yes. He’d been busy at work the past few weeks and stopped by to say hello.”_

_“And what time was that?”_

_“I had just closed the shop for the night, so it must have been around 7:30.” Abe tried to push the shock and sadness and anger to the back of his mind, and tried to answer as calmly as he could. They would catch this guy, and then he could help Henry try and pick up the pieces. If he didn’t just run._

_“And what time did he leave your shop?”_

_Abe thought for a moment before he answered._

_“It couldn’t have been more than 20 minutes later.”_

_“And what is your relationship with Dr. Morgan?” Rodriguez was looking down at the file in front of him as he spoke, but he brought his head up to meet Abe’s gaze while he waited for an answer._

_“His father and I were business partners. Henry took his place after he passed away.” Abe’s answer was practiced, and he smiled politely through the lie. “I’ve known him practically his whole life.”_

_“Has he always been this cut off from everyone?”_

_Abe frowned at the detective’s tone and word choice._

_“Henry’s always been private.”_

_Detective Walker made a sound of acknowledgement in the back of his throat and gave his partner a look._

_“Henry’s had bad experiences in the past with trusting the wrong people. It makes him more cautious, now, that’s all,” Abe continued, trying to support Henry without saying too much._

_“It didn’t seem to take him too long to warm up to Ms. Rayne,” Detective Walker said, his tone deceptively light. “They knew each other, what, 6 months before they were married?”_

_“Dr. Rayne,” Abe said firmly without thinking, a force of habit from everyone assuming that Henry was the only doctor in the family. Something was wrong, a warning sounding in the back of his mind. These weren’t the questions they should be asking._

_“What are you trying to say, Detective?” Abe asked as he sat up straighter in his chair._

_“Just that theirs was a whirlwind romance. Those don’t always end well.”_

_“Now, wait just a minute. I know Henry’s a little...eccentric, but he would never have hurt Abigail. He loved her.”_

_“People kill people they love every day, Mr. Morgan. That’s not exactly the strongest defense,” Rodriguez pointed out._

It hadn’t gone much better after that. Abe had tried to paint Henry in a positive light, to talk about just how much he loved Abigail, how good he was to her, but they had their suspect and everything he said they just took as further proof that they were right.

Scowling at the memory, Abe got into his car and threw his bag on the seat. He knew there had to be a way to fix this, a way to get Henry out, but he hadn’t been able to see it yet.

 

\-----

 

The summons letter was in his mailbox when he got home. He sat down at the kitchen table and opened it, knowing already what it was going to say. 

_Mr. Morgan,_

_You are hereby summoned to appear and give testimony..._

When the legal assistant had called Abe two days ago to inform him that the prosecution wanted him as a character witness, he had told her that he wasn't sure, that he would have to think about it.

He knew that if the prosecution wanted him on the stand, that they would already have a plan for twisting whatever he had to say to add weight to Henry’s supposed guilt.

But Henry still refused to see him, and had instructed his lawyer not to let Abe near anything to do with the case. He looked at the letter again. If this was the only way to help, he would do it.


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Does the jury have a verdict?”_
> 
>  
> 
>  _The judge folded her hands in front of her as the jury representative stood. Henry maintained his stance, the courtroom still washed out with sunlight, the voices drifting in like a dream._  
> 
>  
> 
> _“We find the defendant guilty, Your Honor.”_

“Are you sure you won’t see him?” Villanvera asked.

Henry shook his head firmly at his lawyer. The chain on his handcuffs rattled against the visiting room table as he leaned forward to press his point.

“No. Absolutely not.”

“I’m getting at least two calls a day.” Villanvera folded his hands over Henry’s file, spread open on the tabletop in front of him, and looked at Henry with pity. “You might not get another chance. Things are moving quickly.”

Henry wouldn’t even entertain the idea of seeing Abe. Abe’s desperation was growing and Henry wished he could tell him to stop, but he wouldn’t put any more contact between them that might cast suspicion on Abe.

“He’s offered to pay your bail,” Villanvera said.

“Certainly not,” Henry said. Henry fiddled with the cuffs on his wrists. They felt heavy after twenty-five minutes of wearing them. Only five minutes left of his thirty-minute visitor’s window. “He can’t do that without permission, can he?”

“No, not unless I agree to it, and I’d have to have your say-so.”

“Then, no.”

“Just as well. I wasn’t looking forward to working out how to explain the fact you’ve got a friend who can come up with a million dollars for bail.” The portly lawyer leaned back in the chair.

Villanvera’s own curiosity was palpable, but Henry offered him nothing. Henry’s main financial holdings were overseas and well separate from his current life, but Abe would know how to access to them. Henry had no idea how much was in them at this point, having done little but let them accumulate. Apparently they held more than he realized. Abe getting hold of that much money and helping Henry would indeed draw attention. In his emotional state, Abe was becoming incautious. He was likely to cause more trouble than help.

“Henry, it’s not looking good,” Villanvera said into the lengthy silence, which was filled only with the quiet buzz of the stark fluorescent lighting of the jail visiting room.

“I know.”

“The police are looking into tracing the gun from the ballistics information, but they’re moving slowly. I’ve been trying to motivate them, but the 911 call is damning.”

Henry nodded, rotating the cuff on his wrist. He had too much time to sit and think over the case, and no ability to do anything about it. If he could get out there, if he could look over the evidence, put himself to work on the problem, he knew he could figure this out. He could find the man who killed Abigail.

Instead, all he could do was sit here, obsessing about details and dry facts in the hopes they would blot out his feelings. His thoughts went nowhere. He was stuck at the mercy of a police force that had already decided his guilt, and a lawyer who only believed in his innocence as long as Henry’s money was green.

“I see,” Henry said.

“If we had some information, if we could track down that weapon, prove it wasn’t yours, we might have a chance. A slim one, but a chance. It’s not going to come in time. They’re pushing the case through quickly.”

Villanvera reached for the case folder again, paging through it until he found a list of names. He pulled reading glasses from his pocket and slipped them on, looking at the paper. He sighed loudly as he reviewed it.

“We’re still weak on character witnesses. I interviewed all the hospital staff I could get hold of that had even knew you tangentially. This fellow, Wahl, he had lots good to say, but same story as everyone else—said he didn’t know you outside work. A few doctors said they got on well with you, lots of nice lunch and coffee break chat, but again, nothing outside that.” Villanvera looked at Henry over the low rims of the glasses, his brows knit together. “Almost four years, and they don’t know you. No clubs, no hobbies, no Friday night happy hours, nothing.”

Henry gave him a thin smile and shrugged. It was just as well, he had no desire to drag anyone else into this disaster.

“I’ve always been a private person.”

Villanvera took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes.

“Yes, I realize that. But Henry, you look like a ghost. I’ve interviewed colleagues and acquaintances and I get the same story—nice guy to work with, very private, no idea what he does after he clocks out. Abigail’s family and friends, they hardly know you. You’ve got one close friend only, and you won’t let me call him as a character witness. Which means the prosecution is going to use him against you, by the way, and I’m not going to have any way to control that damage.”

Henry leaned back in his chair and wished he could pace. His isolation had always protected him before, kept him free to run when he needed to. Now it was the chain that bound him, as sure as he was chained to this table like a dog.

“And about you and Abigail together, I get the same story from everyone. She met you, and suddenly she disappeared off the radar. Granted, people get into new relationships and we say that all the time. ‘Oh, I never see you anymore now that you’re with so-and-so.’ Pretty normal. But not so great when nobody knows the guy, when he’s got no family, no friends, when she only goes out to see people, never has them to her home. It looks bad, Henry. Really, really bad.”

Henry closed his eyes, blotting out the ugly, harsh light of the room, but it did nothing to block out the truth of Villanvera’s words. Abigail had given up so much to be with him, willingly distancing herself to limit the number of people in their home, as protective of his secret as Henry himself—maybe more so.

“I’m just saying we might have to prepare for the worst. If you’ll agree to changing your plea to manslaughter, we can maybe—”

“No.” Henry placed both hands on the table as he interrupted him, the cuffs clinking, and opened his eyes to fix Villanvera in his sights. “I will never say I killed her. There is a man out there who killed her, and I will not put my name to what he did. If the court sees fit to misinterpret the evidence, so be it. But I will _never_ say I killed her.”

Villanvera held up his hands to placate him, and Henry realized his chest was heaving, his eyes burning. So little moved him these days. It was a surprise to remember he could feel anything other than numb resignation.

“Okay, okay. I understand, but it’s my job as your lawyer to give you my advice.”

“Thank you, but no.”

“They’re going to push for maximum sentence. I would if I were them. That’s twenty-five years.”

Henry nodded to show he’d heard, but couldn’t bring himself to more. There was a brisk knock on the door signalling the end of their thirty minutes. Villanvera put the list back into his folder and closed it, then grunted as he stood. He looked down at Henry. His thick features had settled back into the tired pity he’d borne when they’d started their meeting.

“I’ll see you the day after tomorrow. We’ll start prepping your testimony.”

Henry nodded mutely and Villanvera knocked in return on the door to be let out.

After he was gone, Henry was escorted back to holding, a tiny cell that was a harbinger of things to come. At this point he didn’t have much hope of a fair trial, or any outcome other than his own conviction. It was clear they were going through the motions.

Henry lay down on the small cot and stared at the crackling gray paint that was flaking off the cement ceiling. He’d seen the inside of jail cells before, though never with more than a year or two’s sentencing to leave him trapped. He’d always told himself that prisons didn’t bother him. I was the white rooms that haunted him, with restraints instead of shackles, and orderlies in place of guards. Those sentences had no maximum time.

They were both prisons, and Henry did fear them both. Once he’d killed himself to escape, with the help of a kindly cell mate. He wasn’t sure he could have done it himself. Suicide was not as easy as it should be, given his situation. Even with the confident knowledge that he’d merely reawaken, he’d never been able to manage it by his own hand. Fate still hadn’t beaten that natural, instinctual fear out of him.

Besides, death was no escape. All he wanted was a proper escape—a permanent one, with no waking up on the other side.

There was no Abigail to come home to. There was no point to any of this.

If he hadn’t met her, she’d be living her life happily with her friends and family. He should have left her be, not been a fool and fallen in love.

 

\-----

 

_Henry kept his eyes on the patient file in his hands, his head down, as he walked down the hall. The patient, a five year old girl, had a rash and related symptoms that he was almost positive was shingles, but he would have to wait for the test results to come back to be sure. Her next appointment wasn’t until Friday, but…._

_“Excuse me, Doctor?”_

_The voice was young, female, and surprisingly, British. Not something he was used to hearing now that he was back in New York. He looked up from the file._

_“Yes?” he said politely._

_Average height and build, scrubs and lab coat, minimal makeup, blonde hair pulled back in a low bun. She was young enough to not have been practicing for very long, possibly very recently out of medical school. She was nervous and excited—it may well be her first day at the hospital._

_He took all of it in like he always did, his brain automatically cataloguing details, but he couldn’t help but fixate on the way a wisp of her hair fell across her forehead, and the pleasing curve of her lips. Her features were beautiful and fresh._

_He tried to school his expression, bring back the detached smile. He hoped that he hadn’t been leering. Her lips were moving and he forced himself to concentrate on what she was saying._

_“I’m looking for the break room, and I seem to have gotten turned around.”_

_That accent. That must be why he was so entranced. The familiar became so comforting in a new place. The need for him to answer helped to pull him out of his daze._

_“Of course,” he said, bringing his arm up to point down the hallway to her left. “it’s just down that hall on the right.”_

_Her gaze followed where he was pointing and then she turned back to him. She was smiling again, and he couldn’t help but be drawn back to her lips._

_“Thank you, Doctor…”_

_“Morgan,” he finished, sticking his hand out. “Henry Morgan.”_

_“Abigail Rayne.” She shook his hand._

_“Abigail,” he repeated. “That’s a beautiful name.”_

_Her smile was captivating._

 

\-----

 

Abe arrived at the courthouse early on the day he was supposed to testify. He tugged nervously at his tie as he waited in a side room and tried not to think about how Henry would have been smoothing out the shoulders of Abe’s jacket or admonishing him for messing up his tie, if he weren’t already in the courtroom.

Once called to the stand, Abe sat down and waited for the prosecuting attorney to get started. He squared his shoulders when he was called and prepared himself for what he knew was going to be an attack on his father. He was prepared this time. The detectives had caught him off guard, but that wouldn’t be happening today.

The attorney got up, adjusted his tie and walked toward Abe with a patently false smile.

“Mr. Morgan, how long have you known the defendant?” His tone was easy, friendly almost.

“Since he was a kid. His father was my business partner,” Abe replied, the lie falling easily off of his tongue.

“And what is your relationship now?”

“After his father died, he continued the process of shipping the antiques to me from the UK, but now that he’s in New York, he helps around the place when he can. We shared the living space above the shop.”

“And has he always been secretive?”

“Objection!” Villanvera called out as he stood up. “Your honor, that question is inflammatory.”

The prosecuting attorney turned to the judge.

“Your honor, I’m merely trying to get background on the defendant’s typical behavior prior to the murder.”

“I’ll allow it, but make sure the rest of your questions are more neutral, Councillor,” the judge answered firmly.

The attorney nodded and turned back to Abe.

“I’ll rephrase that question. Has the defendant always kept to himself?”

Abe glanced at Henry, but received no acknowledgement or assistance. He was staring forward, his expression blank.

“He’s had a hard time trusting people, and doesn’t let them in very easily, but I wouldn’t say he’s secretive.”

 _At least, not in the way everyone is thinking_ , Abe thought to himself.

“Secretive was a poor choice of words on my part, Mr. Morgan,” the attorney said smoothly before moving on to the next question. “The defendant and the victim didn’t know each other for very long. Did they seem happy together?”

“I’ve never seen two happier people. They were both good for each other, I think,” Abe said with a nod.

“If they were so good for each other, why did she cut contact off with her friends and co-workers after they became involved? It would seem to me,” he began, turning to the jury and the rest of the courtroom, “that if this relationship was so good for them, she would have wanted to share it with her friends.”

“Objection! Your honor, he’s speculating.” Villanvera was on his feet again.

The judge gestured for Villanvera to sit.

“Stick to your questions, Councillor,” she said with a frown to the prosecuting attorney.

The attorney nodded and turned back to Abe. He could tell that the attorney knew the judge wouldn’t be so lenient a third time, and stuck to asking about the night of the murder and if Henry had been acting differently. Abe answered them as honestly and as favorably as he could, but he wasn’t sure it had done any good.

 

\-----

 

Abe sat behind the prosecuting attorney’s table the next trial day. He had sat behind Henry before, wanting to be as close to his father as possible, but could see Henry better this way, and if he turned his head the right way, Henry could see him.

The prosecuting attorney stood in the middle of the courtroom as he introduced the next piece of evidence. His voice was grim as he explained that they had a tape of the 911 call made the night of the murder, but there was a smugness to his body language. He sat down again as the tape began to play.

The 911 operator’s voice, a middle aged woman from the sound of it, spoke first.

_“911, state the nature of your emergency.”_

Abigail spoke next, and Abe was taken aback by how terrified she sounded.

_“There’s a—no, please!”_

He wasn’t the only one in the courtroom to flinch at the sound of the gunshot followed by Abigail’s scream. Abe glanced at Henry. His eyes were closed, his head down.

The operator’s calm but urgent, _“Ma’am, are you still there?”_ was followed by Abigail’s muffled and weak answer.

_“...help me…”_

_“Ma’am, I have emergency services on their way. Can you tell me what’s happened? Ma’am?”_

_“Henry. Had a gun. You—-Henry.”_ Abigail’s voice was weaker still as she spoke, and she sounded almost delirious. Abe closed his eyes, knowing how the jury would take that statement.

The next voice to be heard was Henry’s at a distance, frantically calling Abigail’s name, begging her to stay with him. Abe glanced over at Henry again. His shoulders were tight and Abe knew he was reliving every moment. Knowing his father, it was a vivid experience. Henry’s memory had always been sharp. Sometimes it was a blessing, but a curse in this case.

The operator spoke again, repeating that emergency services were on their way, but the only sound that she got as a response was the sound of his father’s muffled sobs.

 

\-----

 

A sunbeam cut through the court room, straight across Henry’s seat at the defendant’s table, half-blinding him. Two days? A week? A month? He had no idea how long he’d been sitting in this chair as this farce progressed around him, brought from cell to courtroom and back again to listen to their twisted facts, robbed of a voice anyone would heed.

At his side, Villanvera stood. It took a moment before Henry realized he should as well, that the entire court was waiting for him to stand.

“Does the jury have a verdict?”

The judge folded her hands in front of her as the jury representative stood. Henry maintained his stance, the courtroom still washed out with sunlight, the voices drifting in like a dream.

“We find the defendant guilty, Your Honor.”

There were murmurs from the court, whispers and general hubbub of agreement, and above it Henry could hear Abe’s “ _no, that’s not right_ ,” his voice thick with disbelief.

Henry closed his eyes as sentencing was read, calling for the maximum sentence of twenty-five years.

Twenty-five years in prison. His first shot at parole would be in fifteen. Maybe by then they wouldn’t have noticed he hadn’t aged a day, wouldn’t notice that their fifty-year old prisoner still looked exactly the same as the day they’d locked him up.

Fifteen years at best until he could try to get out and find the man who had killed Abigail, by which time the trail would have long gone cold. It was already cold enough what with the months rolled past after her death with no news, no information, only a growing stack of circumstantial evidence outlining his guilt. Now, it was too late.

As they led him down the aisle from the courtroom, he could hear Abe calling to him from the gallery.

“Henry? Henry!”

There was a wheedling, insecure sound to his voice, the sound of his childhood fears bleeding into his tone. Henry was already sentenced, the case was closed, and the court couldn’t touch Abe. Henry let himself look to the side to find him. He quickly spotted him, his worried eyes tracking Henry from several seats in, shuffling to try and get through the people to Henry.

He managed a smile and Abe paused. Abe shook his head vigorously, as though he could deny everything that was happening.

“It’ll be alright,” Henry mouthed. “It’s okay.”

The sheriff at Henry’s back prodded him to carry on, and Henry turned from Abe and walked out of the court.


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jo’s cell rang as she was entering the precinct, and she picked up to find Hanson on the other end.
> 
>  _“Looks like this case just got more exciting,”_ Hanson said. _“One of the cons in the van survived, and the guard says he escaped. Guard swears up and down the guy saved his life before he ran off. Convict with a heart of gold, I guess?”_
> 
> “You’re kidding me,” Jo groaned. She could feel her headache flare at the thought of a manhunt complicating this case. “Who is it? Did you get a name?”
> 
> _“He says the guy’s name is Henry Morgan.”_

Henry, last in the line of six prisoners, stepped into the Department of Corrections transport van. His movements were awkward as he settled into his seat near the front, his hands restrained in cuffs. He had been stripped of his clothes and given the orange jumpsuit of an inmate. The cheap material was stiff and scratchy, freshly pulled from a package and handed to him, his new uniform for the next few decades.

Henry was seated at the front of the row of three seats next to a broad, stocky man who was pale and nervous despite the aggressive posturing he’d put on as he’d walked to the van ahead of Henry. The two guards sat in front of him on a bench seat facing backwards, their bodies positioned so that they could see everyone in the van at all times, but safely out of reach of the prisoners.

Henry turned his head to look out the window. His anxious seatmate turned a glare at him, but when realizing that Henry’s attention was not on him, settled back into his sullen slouch and ignored Henry.

It was a beautiful day outside. Henry wondered how many of those he would miss while incarcerated. He knew from experience that even if he was able to see the sun from a window or while in the prison yard, it didn’t do much to alleviate the emotional effects that came with a loss of freedom.

The van roared to life and left the temporary holding facility, headed for an upstate prison. He hadn’t even bothered to listen to the judge as his sentence was read out, and he had no idea where he was going. Not as though it mattered.

“Adler, you got any plans for this weekend?” one of the guards, Romano, asked the other.

Henry glanced over at them before turning his attention back to the window. Strange to hear people continuing on with their daily life as though six men weren’t headed to be locked away from theirs. Perhaps some of these men had committed the crimes of which they were convicted. Maybe some, like him, were being sent away as a suitable scapegoat.

“I’m working all but Sunday, so I’m just gonna go home and relax,” Adler said.

Romano nodded, scanning each of the prisoners before turning his attention back to Adler.

“I hear ya. I’ve got the weekend off, but I have some work to do on the back deck.”

“That’ll make Mary happy.”

Romano made some comment about his wife, but Henry tuned them out. New York traffic had finally let up, and the van was pulling onto a feeder for the bridge, and the scenery began to speed past. Beside them, an avocado green four door sedan that looked like it had driven out of the 1970s slid into the neighboring lane and kept pace with them, joining the parade to incarceration.

As they drove closer to the edge of Manhattan, they passed the building where Abe used to go to daycare when he was young. It was boarded up and dark now, and Henry felt a pang of something like loss. At what exactly, he wasn’t sure. Loss of the time when Abe was young, or loss of the time he would have had left with Abe. Henry turned his head to keep the building in sight as they passed, one that held memories as so many in this city did.

As he looked back, the sedan that had been pacing them caught his eye again—it swerved in its lane, losing control as it swept outward and nearly into the lane of opposing traffic. Henry straightened, alarmed, but then the car corrected with a lurch of speed and accelerated towards the side of the van.

It was headed straight for them.

“Look out!” Henry shouted, shying back towards his side of the van as the car careened towards them.

It was the only warning they had before the car exploded. No one had time to react.

The explosion shattered the windows. Henry hunched over instinctively, covering his head with his hands. He heard the shrill scream of the man at his side. The blazing heat of an explosion washed over Henry and something sharp tore a line of pain across his shoulder.

There was another loud and furious explosion and the slam of the shock wave. The van swerved sharply to the right and twisted and Henry curled in on himself, the body of his now-dead seatmate slamming into him as the van lost control and flipped, and Henry was thrown to the front of the van, his body slamming into one of the guards.

Prolonged seconds continued, metal shrieking and rending around him, until the van came to a halt. Adler, the guard he’d been thrown into, was dead, his face vacant across Henry’s chest. His body pinned Henry to the side of the van, which was now resting against the ground. Above him, Henry could see sky—the side of the van had been ripped open, the back end at the wheel base nearly shorn off. There was no movement, and all he could hear was the steaming tick of overheated metal.

He could see flames licking at the front of the van beyond the dead body of the driver, who was slumped over the wheel. He had to get out of here before something else exploded. Self-preservation kicked in—a long forgotten feeling, but still in him somewhere—and he fumbled at Adler’s waist to find a bundle of keys. He managed to locate a handcuff key and free himself, and then shoved Adler’s weight off him.

He started to climb over the twisted seats, but a groan sounded nearby from beneath one of the front seat. He crouched down and looked towards the front end of the van to find the other guard, Romano, sprawled across the center console. He had hit his head and was bleeding profusely, but he was alive. He made another faint noise and rolled his head a bit.

Despite the flames, despite the tempting daylight and chance at freedom beyond the remains of the van, Henry couldn’t leave him, and so climbed his way to Romano. He gave him a quick and cursory feel to make sure his spine was intact, with the same battlefield efficiency of his time in the wars, and then wrapped his arms around Romano and lifted him up, half-carrying and half-dragging him towards the massacred back end of the van, past the bodies of the other prisoners.

“Adler,” Romano groaned.

“He’s dead,” Henry grunted in response as he heaved. “I’m sorry.”

“Morgan?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out.”

He shoved and pushed, giving Romano a mental apology when one of his legs got caught against the hot side of the van and he moaned in pain. With one final heave he managed to get himself and Romano out of the van and they toppled to the pavement below. They had fallen between the van and the bonfire-like flaming wreckage of the car, which was billowing smoke and radiating searing heat. Beyond the roar of the flames he could hear people screaming, and the honking of disrupted traffic.

Henry took stock of his body, trying to see how bad the damage was. Miraculously nothing felt broken, as he’d been largely shielded by his seatmate’s body in the crash. While he knew he had some nasty cuts and bruises that would soon turn a deep purple, that was the worst of it. He was alive, and at this point, likely to remain so.

He could run. He could escape.

He forced himself into a sitting position and then stood. Making a dash past the line of gathering bystanders would be harder in prison orange, and so in the relative safety of the ring of smoking, burning vehicles he stripped off his jumpsuit, then relieved Romano of his jacket.

“I’m sorry about this,” he said, panting with effort as he rolled Romano’s semi-conscious body to free his other arm, jerking him roughly.

Henry pulled on the jacket over his naked chest. The boxers would do, he couldn’t afford staying here any longer to rob Romano of his trousers, as the acrid smoke and heat were starting to become intolerable. With another rally of his energy he sat Romano’s limp weight up to a sitting position, grabbed him under the armpits from behind, and began to pull.

He dragged Romano far enough from the burning accident scene to satisfy his conscience, then released him and gently guided him back to the ground.

“You’ll be alright, help will be here soon,” Henry said as he lay him down.

“Morgan,” Romano slurred again, grasping weakly at his sleeve.

Henry shook him off easily and stood, turning around. There were cars piled up everywhere, fender-benders as people had slammed on brakes to avoid the crash, people standing by cars, shouts and points. He could hear sirens already.

Henry turned for the narrowest street and began to run, not stopping for shouts, shouldering his way through the crowd that was gathering, tearing past them until they thinned and regular New York foot traffic was around him. He streaked past a shop with racks of cheap exercise clothes on sale near the door and snatched a pair of polyester running pants, not stopping as he knocked over the rack, not stopping at the shouts behind him, merely clutching his prize and running as fast as he could, until his chest burned and he thought he couldn’t breathe. He dodged around people until he couldn’t run anymore, until his pace had slowed to a jog.

He was a good twenty blocks from the accident, in a rougher area of town where his boxers and terrifying, dirty mien did nothing more than make people avoid eye contact. Bless the New York indifference.

Henry pulled on his stolen trousers as he balanced himself against a wall, all his limbs shaking. The faint sound of sirens soon drove him on again, the old instinct to escape and hide helping him find energy he didn’t have.

He had to find a way to lose himself in the city.

 

\-----

 

Jo took a deep drink of her coffee when she stopped at a red light and grimaced. In her haste to get in and out of the coffee shop quickly she’d thrown in too much sugar and cream and it was syrupy sweet. Her stomach was iffy enough after all the drinks last night, and the awkward exchange this morning with André over the mixed up phones had been painful. Bad coffee was definitely enough to put the capper on an already terrible morning.

Her cell buzzed and she grabbed it quickly to see a text with an intersection address. Crime scene. Hanson was leaving the precinct now and said to meet her there.

She was closer than Hanson was, so at least she’d have the benefit of beating him there and not dragging her butt into the bullpen late. Jo popped her lights on and pulled around a few cars to nudge through the intersection and continue on.

The crime scene wasn’t hard to find, but getting to it was another matter. Traffic was snarled on all routes leading to the foot of the bridge. After blaring the siren and flashing her lights to work her way through blocks of stand-still traffic, she gave up and pulled over onto the sidewalk, leaving her car to walk the last two blocks.

When Jo turned the block she could see the smoking wreckage immediately, blocking the feeder to the bridge. Uniformed officers had set up cordons already to keep back the public, and were trying to reroute traffic. She slammed another third of the sickly sweet coffee. She was going to need all of it for this one.

Jo pushed her way through, flashing her badge at the uniformed cop manning the cordon and ducked under the police tape.

Two burnt-out wrecks were at the center of it all, one barely recognizable as a car, the other a half-blasted transport van. Yasmin Asadi, the crime scene investigation unit leader, turned to Jo and gave her a half-hearted wave.

“How many bodies do we have?” Jo asked.

“Hey Jo, good to see you. You’re not gonna like it. This one’s a mess,” she said. “Eight dead so far—seven bodies identified in the van, and one more died in the second car.” Yasmin pointed out a small red car at the impact point a few hundred yards back, its front end crumpled in and windshield smashed. She then nodded to the burnt-out car next to her. “Looks like there was a bomb in this one.”

“A bomb? What the hell happened here?”

“We’re still working on pulling the traffic cam information and then we’ll know more, but as far as we can tell, this car tried to ram the Department of Corrections vehicle off the road and then blew up. Took out two other cars with it plus the van, and then we’ve got a half-dozen or so piled up around the accident. Minor injuries only.”

Jo wandered over to the steaming wrecks with Yasmin, circling the twisted lump that the fire department had hosed down. The sedan was half gone and a twisted outward like a modern art sculpture of a tiger lily, and the side of the DOC van was ripped open.

Jo peered into the van. The bodies—or what was left of them—had already been removed and were laid out on the side of the road. She glanced back at the wall of piled up cars being slowly re-routed to the other bridges. Damn, this was a mess. If it had just been a traffic accident, no problem. As a crime scene, this was going to take time to clear away.

“Mob hit, maybe?”

“Someone wanted somebody dead, that’s for sure,” Yasmin said. “That car was pretty heavily loaded. Amazing anyone survived at all.”

“Someone survived this? Who?”

“One of the guards in the DOC van. They took him to Mt. Sinai hospital, I think.”

Jo pulled out her cell and texted Hanson, telling him to check on the guard, see if they could get some information from him on the accident. She got an irate and colorful text back about the wall-to-wall traffic, and that he’d see what he could. Hanson wasn’t patient with Manhattan traffic at the best of times, and he was probably fit to have an aneurism at the moment.

“Alright, I’ve got Hanson on it. Hopefully the guard will be able to give us something. Get me the info once you’ve got more on the explosives.”

“There’s one more thing. And this is the really weird bit,” Yasmin said before Jo could turn away. “As far as I can tell, the sedan didn’t have a driver.”

Jo frowned, looking back at the twisted wreck nestled alongside the van.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just incinerated?”

Yasmin gave her an irritated look.

“Yeah, not my first day on the job, love. When I say there was no driver, I mean it. Not a trace of a person anywhere in that car.”

Jo raised her coffee cup in an apologetic toast.

“Sorry. Well, that is a new one. Robot cars driving the streets, then?”

“No clue,” Yasmin said with a shrug. “But I, for one, cannot wait to see that traffic cam tape.”

“Okay, thanks. Get me what you can on this, and I’ll start getting the list of victims together.”

Jo left the accident scene behind to the uniforms to do the cleanup and organization, and set about the struggle back uptown. With the bridge out of commission, traffic everywhere was a mess, and by the time she made it to the precinct parking garage she was ready to murder a few people herself.

Jo’s cell rang as she was entering the precinct, and she picked up to find Hanson on the other end.

 _“Looks like this case just got more exciting,”_ Hanson said. _“One of the cons in the van survived, and the guard says he escaped.”_

“You’re kidding me,” Jo groaned. She could feel her headache flare at the thought of a manhunt complicating this case.

_“Guard swears up and down the guy saved his life before he ran off. Convict with a heart of gold, I guess?”_

“Who is it? Did you get a name?”

_“He says the guy’s name is Henry Morgan.”_

The name rang a bell, but juggling her bag, the cold coffee, and her phone, she wasn’t focused on it. She dropped her keys and swore, which made Hanson chuckle at her from his end.

“Look, I’ll call you back okay? I’ll get the BOLO out on Morgan as soon as I’m upstairs.”

_“Yeah, sure. The guard wasn’t awake for long, he’s knocked out at the moment, but the doctor here says give him a couple hours and he’ll be lucid again. I’m going to hang around and see if I can get more info.”_

“Sounds good. Actually, give me a call when he’s awake, I’ll come down and meet you, see what he says.”

_“Okay, talk to you in a bit.”_

She said her goodbyes and hung up, put the cell in her pocket, and made the elevator trip upstairs.

Henry Morgan. The name nagged at her, and it wasn’t until she put the search into the file and his mug shot came up on her screen that it clicked.

Dr. Henry Morgan, the wife killer. In a flash, the face of his wife that the news had brandished around like a flag came to mind—young, blond, sweetly smiling at the camera with an expression that said she was on the verge of laughter. Jo sat back in her chair. Why did it have to be this guy?

Just after Sean died, the story had been all the twenty-four hour media cycle would talk about, and every time she flipped on the television she’d heard the name. Henry Morgan, shot his wife in cold blood at their home in a fit of jealousy. Weird recluse disguised as one of New York’s doctors.

Just the sight of Dr. Morgan’s face reminded her of those weeks sitting on her couch, no energy to even get up and shower, waiting for some hint that this was all a bad dream. A heart attack—it made no sense. It _still_ made no sense, four months later. It was hard not to take it personally, the idea of people out there killing the ones they were meant to love, when without warning or purpose the love of your life could be taken from you, for no other reason than stupid fate.

She took a deep breath to try and let it go. Sean had always told her she was going to get an ulcer if she took every case personally, if she brought this back to her own life. Then again, he’d been better at preaching that one than he had been at practicing it. He’d brought home too many of his own cases, rambling about his clients while she’d gently teased him away from his bad moods, and he’d do the same for her.

But he wasn’t here to do it now, so she wrapped her hand around the ring on the chain around her neck and squeezed it, trying to picture his smile and the sound of his voice instead.

_Can’t take it all home with you, baby._

She looked at her computer again, and Dr. Morgan’s hollow-eyed mugshot stared back at her. Sooner the BOLO was out, the sooner this creep would be back in jail.

Exploding driverless cars and escaped murderers. If this was Monday, she didn’t even want to know how the rest of her week was going to roll out.

She pulled Morgan’s file, which had been handled by the 13th precinct, but given the location of the crash—no, explosion—this was now in the 11th’s hands.

The case was open and shut, from the look of it. Domestic abuse, growing worse and worse until he shot her in cold blood. They hadn’t found the murder weapon, but the 911 transcripts were chilling, even in text, as his wife Abigail begged for her life, sealing the deal on his guilt. Jo choked down her response, not willing to invest in this any more than with her usual professional determination to close this up quickly. But she was tired, hung over, and way too burnt out to be putting up with a case like this first thing, and it sunk into her chest like a knife.

Morgan could have done the world a favor and died in the crash.


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Henry Morgan, put your hands behind your head.”_
> 
> _Jo stepped forward slowly, gun trained on him, one hand reaching for the handcuffs at her waist. She advanced another couple steps, and only when she hefted the gun in a menacing fashion did he lock his hands behind his head. He twisted, looking back towards the edge of the building, then returned his gaze to her._
> 
> _“I can’t go back,” he said, voice almost lost in the wind. “I can’t. I have to find out what happened to her.”_
> 
> _“Get on your knees,” she instructed. He shook his head, stubborn, and sighted the gun again. He cringed, but didn’t get down. “Henry, I don’t want to shoot you, but I will. Get on your knees.”_
> 
> _“Please!” he cried, and his hands unlocked from behind his head, falling to his sides. “I didn’t kill my wife. I didn’t kill her, I loved her. I need to find out who did this!”_

Henry stood in a small gas station bathroom under a flickering light which illuminated the grime and graffiti that covered every surface. He’d salvaged a filthy t-shirt from a rubbish pile in the street. With two holes gaping in the hem and streaks of dirt marring the maroon material, his skin streaked with soot and blood from a scratch on his temple, he was in no better shape than the grotty bathroom.

He picked up one of the safety razors he'd stolen from the gas station from a small pile of items on the back of the sink. He'd used the scissors already to trim back the beard, make the length of the hair easier to shave with the cheap razors.

Henry simply stared at himself in the mirror, as he held the razor loosely in his hand. He hadn't been clean shaven in years. He knew how different he looked without the beard, but this was proving to be more difficult than he had anticipated.

_"No, keep it. I like it."_

Her voice came, unbidden and he closed his eyes against the memory. It didn’t help.

_Abigail's face appeared suddenly in the mirror behind him, amused at having caught him examining his face at all angles._

_"Do you think I should shave? I'm trying to decide if it would make me look younger."_

_She moved in closer, crowding in next to him to get a good look. She shook her head._

_"No, keep it. I like it."_

_"If I don't do something I'll have to start dyeing it gray."_

_"Yes. Do that. I think it'll suit you."_

_"You think so?" He looked back in the mirror, turning his head to the side._

_"Like George Clooney," she said, nodding and lifting herself up on her toes to brush her lips against his._

He opened his eyes, his reflection staring back at him and with a deep breath, he brought the razor up and ran it down his left cheek. The first razor clogged up quickly, only staying sharp long enough to give him a rough shave. He threw the razor away, and used the second razor to finish getting the majority of the hair off of his face. After that one as clogged as well, he grabbed the last razor and carefully finished shaving his face. He hissed when he felt the razor nick his cheek. He already had a few cuts from the first few shaves.

Putting the razor down, he reached for the last item on the sink, a small bag of the white grains and powder used to absorb spills. He was grateful to the janitor who had left their cart unattended at the back of the gas station.

The cuts stung when he used the powder, but it was the easiest way to blot the cuts. He wished he’d had access to better razors, but this would do.

His work done, he washed his face, and then straightened up to get a look at himself in the mirror. His brain took a moment to process who he saw looking back at him. Even knowing that his beard was gone hadn’t prepared him for the moment when he would actually see the change. He had almost forgotten what he looked like clean shaven. It certainly changed his look, and should stop at least the general populace from recognizing him.

He found himself wishing he hadn’t had to resort to this, wishing he could have found a different disguise. Abigail’s Henry had a beard. Abe’s Henry had had a beard since he was small. He felt that another link to them had been severed, and he had to look away from the mirror. It wasn’t him who stared back at him, tired, and looking completely wrecked.

A brisk knock on the bathroom door startled Henry from his contemplation, and he turned from the mirror and his clean-shaven reflection to eye the door nervously. He’d been in here a while, perhaps someone had grown tired of waiting.

He quickly tidied up the last trace of whiskers and soap and shoved the paper towels and razors into the garbage can, layering more paper towels overtop to hide the evidence. Again, another knock.

Henry cracked the door, ready with a pleasant, false smile—only to find himself nose-to-nose with a police officer.

“Have a nice time at the spa?” the officer asked.

Henry took a quick step back into the bathroom, but there was nowhere to go. The cop lunged forward and caught him by the scruff of his collar, getting a secure grip on him, and instinctively Henry shoved at him. However, for all Henry’s experience in life, he wasn’t a fighter. His opponent was large and burly, and with seemingly little effort wrestled him to the ground and cuffed him. The cuffs clicked shut on his wrists held behind his back, pinching and chafing the deep bruises there from the prison cuffs that had battered him in the accident.

“Okay buddy, you’re gonna calm down, and we’re going to take a trip to the precinct.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry tried. His face was mashed into the grimy tile, but he strove to sound calm and polite, trotting out his rarely used attempt at a New York accent. “It was a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

“Right, those razors and everything just misunderstood their way right into your pockets. I mighta let you off with a warning, but you had to go and be an action hero, huh?”

Henry was hauled out of the bathroom and marched to the officer’s waiting squad car before being thrown in the back. He was left there while the officer, Dubois, according to his name tag, went to the convenience store two doors down from the gas station and talked to the shop owner standing outside his door with arms crossed watching the drama unfold.

Clearly Henry had not been nearly as discreet as he’d originally thought, and the shop owner had called the cops on him. He was exhausted and making stupid mistakes. He should have risked a further walk to find a place to tidy up; he should have been more careful, less hasty about shoving things in his pockets; he should have been faster, and not lost himself in memories of Abigail….

He pulled at the handcuffs digging into his back, but recent experience told him there was little he could do. It did nothing but make him wince as it aggravated the bruises once more.

So this is how it ended. Hours of freedom, a chance at escape—maybe even finding the truth out there somewhere, though he’d barely let himself think about that amongst all the chaos—all of it, gone.

The car rocked and the door slammed as Dubois got into the driver’s seat, and then he started the engine.

“What’s your name?” he asked Henry. His eyes met Henry’s in the rear view mirror.

“Smith,” Henry said. “Mark Smith.”

Dubois rolled his eyes and snorted. He slammed the car into gear roughly, the car jerking forward as he popped the emergency brake and tore out of the parking lot. Henry struggled to stay upright in the back seat, unable to brace himself with his hands cuffed behind his back.

“Right. Okay, I guess we’ll find out at the station when we do fingerprints, if that’s how you want to play this. But you’re not doing yourself any favors, buddy.”

Henry closed his eyes and tried not to panic.

 

\-----

 

The surveillance video arrived from the traffic department, and it was clear that the crash had been deliberate. This was an attack, not a random traffic accident. Jo was still waiting on the prisoner list from the transport van to see if there was an organized crime connection, but something about it didn’t feel right. This wasn’t mob style.

The car had moved in to catch the van as it left from the courthouse, as the montage of traffic videos showed once pieced together. As it approached the on-ramp to the bridge, it had careened through traffic without any regard for safety or discretion to catch up with the van, kept alongside for a while, then swerved to barrel full speed into the side of the van.

The resulting explosion was a bright blast, leaving a crater at the impact point and smoking hulks, the van blown off center and rolling off the road far enough that the camera lost sight of it, leaving only the burning car half in frame in the road surrounded by collateral damage, people staggering from their cars in confusion.

Jo rewound the tape and ran it again at half-speed to look for any sign of a driver rolling from the car, but there was nothing so far as she could tell. None of the doors on the car opened, though the turn and twist at the last moment did block the passenger side doors. Maybe the driver had rolled out and somehow escaped, and any sign of them was blocked by the ensuing explosion. However, the momentum on leaving the car would have rolled them straight into the explosion. She backed the video up once more to run it again, this time even slower.

Jo’s phone rang. She paused the video and grabbed up her phone to answer it.

“Yeah?”

_“Jo, the guard is awake.”_ It was Hanson, calling from the hospital. _“The doctor here says we can have a few minutes with him.”_

“Great. I can be there in fifteen.”

_“You got it. See you soon.”_

Jo hung up the phone and stood from her desk, stretching out her back. She’d been hunched over the evidence room video terminal for an hour now, and she was eager to get back on her feet. The Department of Corrections was moving at their usual languid pace, and trying to get the full passenger list from the guard was more likely than to wait for the paperwork to shuffle onto her desk by the end of today.

She grabbed herself a paper cup full of semi-decent break room coffee—this early in the day it was still palatable, yet to become its burnt reheated sludge form—and headed for the elevator. After waiting long enough that she downed most of her coffee, she lost patience. The thing was never useful, always clogged up with the first two floors, people coming and going from traffic to pay their fines, and unies bringing in the usual suspects for booking on the main floor.

With a disgusted sigh, she headed for the stairwell. She could use the exercise.

 

\-----

 

“Name?” grunted the booking officer.

The number of chins beneath his jowly face doubled when he looked down at his keyboard, waiting to input the response. Dubois poked Henry in the back.

“Mark, ah, Smith,” he supplied, sticking to the hard sound of the American accent. He tried to keep his face angled away and down, hopefully looking shy and meek rather than dodgy. Not that he looked a paragon of virtue, in handcuffs and in a filthy t-shirt and exercise pants too short for his legs.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s legit,” Dubois said, hauling Henry closer to the booking desk window as two officers wrestled a woman screaming profanity-laden threats down the hall past them.

“Any ID?”

“Didn’t find any, no,” Dubois said.

The booking officer grunted his disapproval, then tucked his multiplying chins again as he focused on the keyboard.

“Charge?”

“Shoplifting.”

The booking desk officer looked up abruptly, from Dubois to Henry, then dropped his elbows on the desk and leaned close to the glass window, squinting at Henry’s face, then back to Dubois. Henry licked his lips, struggling to keep his composure. On the wall behind the booking officer, a dozen wanted posters—front and center, his own bearded, sallow face staring back at him. Dr. Henry Morgan, escaped murderer.

“Shoplifting what?” His voice was sharp.

“Uh, some razors, soap, stuff like that.”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me, Len.”

Dubois shifted behind Henry, and Henry hastily tore his gaze from the posters, electing to stare at his feet instead.

“Well, _and_ resisting arrest. What? It’s—”

“I’ve got every cell doubled up and a line of guys bringing in tweakers and pimps that I haven’t even had a chance to book through, and you want to bring me a guy who jacked a couple Bic razors to get himself a shave?”

The grip on Henry’s bicep tightened, but Dubois said nothing. The booking officer stabbed a meaty finger at Henry.

“You, dumbass. You gonna do this again?”

Henry shook his head vigorously, trying to squelch the small bit of hope. It wouldn’t do to look too relieved, best to stay humble and cowed. Not difficult, since he’d long since lost feeling in all his limbs, his body gone cold with fear.

“No. No, sir.”

“Okay. Now get out of here, quit wasting our time.”

He could tell Dubois wasn’t pleased, but he nonetheless unlocked the cuffs and tucked them back on his belt. Henry rubbed at his wrists and rolled his stiff shoulders, turning cautiously to regard Dubois, who merely shook his head and jerked his head towards the entrance.

“Go on, get the hell out of here. I don’t want to see your face again, hear?”

“I understand.”

Henry turned and walked down the hall from the booking desk towards the main lobby, trying to keep a steady pace. He shouldn’t run, he should walk calmly away. His steps could barely be described as calm, but he held himself firm in check and pushed through the glass double doors into the main lobby.

No one had recognized him yet. He only had to get out of here, past the flood of cops in the lobby who might place him at any time, out the door and away from here. One foot in front of the next, fixed and frozen smile in place. Calm body, calm mind. He could do this.

He could see the main doors. Thirty feet between him and freedom.

He was so focused on his task that he nearly ran into a woman in a dark blue blouse, dark hair swinging loose around her shoulders, as she exited the stairwell. She had a coffee cup clutched in one hand, and she almost spilled it as they tried to avoid colliding into each other.

“Hey! Watch it,” she groused.

“Pardon me,” he said hastily, both anxiety and reflexive manners knocking him back into his natural accent, and he stepped around her.

Twenty-five feet. Twenty-four, twenty-three—

“Dr. Morgan?”

Henry jerked his head up instinctively at the call of his name. He met the eye of the woman he’d just passed, her mouth perfectly rounded in stunned surprise as she stared at him. He realized his mistake too late—he should have kept walking.

She knew him, and he’d confirmed it.

The woman dropped the coffee cup on the ground, the dregs of coffee sloshing out on the floor, splashing her shoe as she reached for the gun in her hip holster.

“Stay right there!” she shouted.

Henry rounded and started to dash for exit, but she was already shouting for the lobby doors to be locked down, and a buzzer was sounding. The added confused hubbub of people shouting at each other made the echoing lobby deafening. Henry dodged between a group of people, a family of six or seven, their voices raised in panicked Spanish as they shied back from him. In front of him the main doors slammed shut, thrown into lockdown, and two police officers were drawing their weapons in front of the door. Henry veered away, still moving as fast as he could. He scanned around and sprinted towards the nearest door he could find, barrelling into the door. The metal slamming against concrete as it burst open and he flung himself through.

A stairwell, only leading up. He wanted to scream in frustration, but there was no time to waste on denying it—up was his only option. The shouting behind him left him no choice, and so up he went. Henry dashed as fast as he could, and behind him he could hear the woman’s voice shout again.

“Henry Morgan, stop or I will shoot!”

Henry ducked low and kept running, taking the stairs two at a time, rounding the landing and going up the next flight. What else could he do? Maybe he could find another stairwell down again, dodge, lose them. He had no choice but to keep running.

 

\-----

 

_He’s in a building full of police officers, where does he think he’s going to go?_

Jo kept up the pace, gun in hand, as she raced after Morgan’s fleeing form, breath rasping in her chest. Every once in a while she checked to make sure he was still ahead of her and hadn’t made an exit onto one of the floors, but her quarry was still headed up. So much the better for her—if she could get him into a corner, control the exits, it’d go quickly. She’d given brief orders to keep the building locked down, so Morgan wasn’t getting out of this.

He’d shaved off the beard and she almost hadn’t recognized him despite bumping into him, but his eyes when he’d looked at her, the arch of his eyebrows and that narrow, hawk-like gaze. She remembered that, the sharp eyes staring at her from his sullen mugshot.

However, when she’d called his name and he’d looked at her, he’d embodied nothing but stark, bald-faced terror. No calculation, no cunning, only fear. Why was he in the precinct?

There were two types when it came to trying to make a collar—fighters and runners. Morgan was a runner. Fighters, it didn’t matter how it played out, it always ended in an attack, them snarling and vicious like a wild dog as you tried to take them down, launching an assault at the least provocation. Then there were people like Morgan, filled with rabbit-like fear, determined to wiggle free of any trap so long as they were still breathing, no matter how hopeless it was.

Above her, the heavy clang of a door. Morgan had reached the roof. She’d gained on him in their seven floor climb, and she was still moving at a good clip and just a floor below him. He had nowhere to go up there, it was a dead end.

Jo’s legs felt like rubber as she made it to the top landing, and she took a moment to pause before going out the door to the roof. A cautious check, but Morgan wasn’t lying in wait for her. She snuck further out, weapon up and ready, scanning for him.

A flash of movement caught her eye to the right and she twisted, snapping her gun up. Morgan was leaning over the railing at the edge of the building looking down. He straightened, looking around, as though he might find a rope or a bridge hanging in mid-air rather than the rest of the city block buildings, all out of reach. He was desperate, cornered, trying to find his way out of the trap, but there was nowhere to go. One way or another, this chase was over.

“Morgan!”

He spun, back slamming to the metal railing. His eyes were wide. Beneath the dirty, thin t-shirt he was wearing she could see his chest heaving in panic. He raised his hands, palms out, as though he could ward her off.

“Please, I—”

“Henry Morgan, put your hands behind your head.”

Jo stepped forward slowly, gun trained on him, one hand reaching for the handcuffs at her waist. She advanced another couple steps, and only when she hefted the gun in a menacing fashion did he lock his hands behind his head. He twisted, looking back towards the edge of the building, then returned his gaze to her.

“I can’t go back,” he said, voice almost lost in the wind. “I can’t. I have to find out what happened to her.”

“Get on your knees,” she instructed. He shook his head, stubborn, and she sighted the gun again. He cringed, but didn’t get down. “Henry, I don’t want to shoot you, but I will. Get on your knees.”

“Please!” he cried, and his hands unlocked from behind his head, falling to his sides. “I didn’t kill my wife. I didn’t kill her, I _loved_ her. I need to find out who did this!”

Jo took another careful step closer. Why did this have to be a part of the game people played with themselves? How many people had she listened to across the interrogation room table as they tried to rewrite their history and undo their deeds? Even when proved guilty, human nature demanded they deny it.

Even so, something in the insistence of Morgan’s plea niggled at her, a scent of honest grief hanging around his words—one that hung around too close to the surface of her own thoughts. She shoved it aside. There wasn’t any space for that right now. He was a convict, and she had a job to do.

“I’m not a judge, Henry. I’m a police officer. Get on the ground, hands behind your head.”

He twisted to look behind him again, at the edge of the building, then back at her. He was hyperventilating, face ashen and sweaty.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

It was all the warning she got before he spun around and leapt for the railing. Goddamn it, he was going to _jump_.

With little time to make a decision, Jo sighted and fired her gun to try and wing him. The gun bucked in her hands with the recoil, and a fraction of a second later Morgan jerked and cried out, clasping at his shoulder. He had a leg over the railing already, and with a pained grunt of effort, he heaved and twisted his body and tumbled over the side.

Jo stood frozen in shock. He’d jumped. He’d killed himself rather than go back to jail, because he—he....

He must have been insane.

Finally she managed to make her feet move and she walked to the edge. She looked down and over, bracing herself for the gory scene to come. Directly below, in the alleyway running between the precinct and the neighboring building, sat a ruined car. The windows were smashed, the roof dented in. She looked for the body, the blood. Even at this height she shouldn’t have been able to miss it.

Nothing. Morgan was gone.

The alley was empty, scattered with bits of detritus, a large dumpster near the other end of it, but nothing to hint where Morgan’s body went. No one could have survived a seven-story fall like that, let alone gotten up and walked away.

Where the hell had he gone?

 

\-----

 

Henry breached the surface of the river with his arms already sweeping through the water to start swimming. He oriented himself and began to swim in earnest, keeping a low profile in the water. This would all be wasted if he ended up arrested again for public nudity. He swam fast and strong, trying not to think of the jump, the fall.

He swam away from the public path towards the pillars of the bridge, crawling out into the muck and mud and filth of the river bank. Three men, homeless and camped out with their gear, made jeering noises and hooted and whistled at him as he clambered out. He looked nervously up towards the breakwater path, but no one was looking down.

Before he could decide whether or not the three men presented a threat, one was already brandishing a jacket at him. Henry, covering himself, eyed it before scanning the faces of the three men. The one with the jacket grinned.

“I never seen no one look like they need it more than me, but you? It’s all yours, man.”

The three laughed uproariously at that, and with a sheepish smile Henry picked his way up the river bank and took the jacket. They all took pity on him and scrounged spare clothing, laughing while he dressed.

“You need a bath, try the Y next time,” the tallest one joked with him, slapping him on the back.

“Yes, I may well do that,” he agreed with a laugh. Shortly, too—he smelled of the river and the generous body odor of men who hadn’t been able to wash their clothes in some time, and proper bathing felt critically necessary, however unlikely it was that it would be in his near future.

Henry had come to find over the years that those who had the least to share were often the most generous, and he mumbled his thanks as the eldest, with thinning gray hair, shoved a wrapped package of cold and sodden french fries into his hands. Henry accepted it with gracious thanks and then stumbled on, waving goodbye.

“Good luck, man,” one shouted after him.

“Try to stay dry!”

“Try to keep these clothes!”

At that they all laughed raucously, the sound of their merriment fading into the sounds of traffic and city life as Henry climbed over the guardrail and headed away from the river.

Henry found a space in a small patch of park to lean at the base of a tree and eat the fossilized french fries. He was hungry enough that even this dubious fare went down quickly, but the memory of the seconds before the fall hit him abruptly—the screaming need to escape and find Abigail’s killer driving him to jump until it overrode his animalistic fear. He’d not thought himself capable of it. His stomach turned, and it took him a moment with his eyes closed, breathing slow and steady, to regain his equilibrium and keep himself from vomiting up the meager meal.

After calming himself, he took stock of his situation. He had clothes, but he had no shoes, no money, no coat, and nowhere to go. Much as he didn’t want to drag anyone into the hellish nightmare his life had become, he needed help.

He couldn’t call Abe. Even if the police believed he was dead, they could be looking into his old life. No, he needed someone just far enough away from him that they wouldn’t immediately connect them.

There was one person he could contact. And while he hated to call in a favor like this, Henry didn’t have another choice.


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Henry idly drifted closer, never stopping too obviously to be accused of loitering, but keeping an eye on the staff as they flowed past. He spotted a few familiar faces among the crowd, and he carefully turned away and lowering his head to keep the stained brim of the baseball hat obscuring his face._
> 
> _Finally he spotted the one person he was looking for. He matched the precise step, negotiating the crowded sidewalk, following his target until he was close enough to touch his arm._
> 
> _“Spare some change?” he said quietly._
> 
> _“No, I don’t—my god, _Henry_?”_
> 
> _Henry smiled, looking into the shocked face of Dr. Lewis Farber._
> 
> _“Hello, Lewis. Sorry to bother you like this, but I need a favor.”_

The bell jingled above the door of the shop, and Abe stopped wiping down the Buddha figurine—fake and made in the 1970s, despite what the man selling it had believed—sitting on a table near the back. 

He walked toward the front of the shop. A woman stood in the middle of the floor, her hands in her pockets as she absentmindedly looked around the shop.

“Can I help you?” he asked. Most people just started browsing, but she looked like she was waiting for him. 

She opened her jacket to show the police badge clipped to her belt loop.

“Detective Martinez, NYPD. I just have a few questions.” 

“Is this about Henry?” Abe asked. “Did something happen?”

Detective Martinez hesitated for a moment before she nodded. 

“Have you seen Henry Morgan today?” she asked.

“No, I haven’t seen him since the court sentencing yesterday. He wasn’t allowed visitors. He was being transferred today, I was going to try and get up there to see him tomorrow.” Abe asked, confused by the way the detective seemed on edge. “Why, what’s going on?”

“The DOC van he was being transferred in was involved in a traffic accident early this morning, and he escaped. He was brought into the police station. He jumped off the roof,” she said flatly, reciting the details like she was reading a list. She was clearly shaken, but cool and professional. “We didn’t find him after he jumped, so we know he’s mobile. Has he come to see you?”

Abe’s eyes widened as he realized what this meant. Henry must have died, his body disappearing and sending him to the river, naked. If Abe could just get down to the river, get Henry some clothes… Henry wouldn’t have to come back with him, but evading the police would be much easier if he weren’t risking public indecency charges. 

Abe had to rein in his excitement before he ended up shoving the detective out the door so he could grab a set of Henry’s clothes and start driving.

“When did that happen?” Abe asked, stepping forward, moving into the detective’s space, trying to subtly crowd her back towards the door. 

She didn’t move, simply stared back at him. 

“A couple of hours ago.”

Abe grimaced. Too long ago for Henry to still be at the river. They really should have kept a stash of clothing there. 

“Mr. Morgan, _have_ you seen Henry?” the detective asked again, her tone firm and unyielding. 

Abe looked up, shaken out of his thoughts. He shook his head. He wouldn’t have minded if he had. He’d been trying to help Henry out since Henry’s arrest, but he hadn’t been able to do much without Henry’s acceptance. Maybe now with different officers, even if they were on his case to recapture him, he could get them to investigate, take a look at the evidence again, and prove Henry’s innocence. He turned and hurried towards the back of the shop.

“I haven’t seen Henry since the trial, but now that you’re here….” he trailed off as he ducked around his desk. “There’s something I want to show you.” He began digging through the papers and files in the top drawer of the desk. After a few moments, he pulled out a manila folder and held it up high, triumphant. “Here. I think you should look at this.” 

He came back to her and held out the file to the detective. She held his gaze for a few seconds, and it was clear she didn’t think she had time for this, but when he shook it and shoved it towards her meaningfully she took it and opened the folder with a sigh. She looked at the papers within.

“What am I looking at here?”

“Proof.” Abe said, bouncing on his toes a couple of times in his excitement for her to see what he did. 

“Proof?” Detective Martinez echoed, her tone skeptical. 

“Henry’s innocent, and that file proves it.” 

Jo looked down at the file and then back up at Abe. 

“This is just talking about the missing gun.”

“They never found the gun. Isn’t finding the murder weapon a big part of a murder case?” Abe asked. 

“It can be, but they had the audio of the 911 call with the victim naming her killer. That’s a pretty solid piece of evidence.” 

“It was misinterpreted!” Abe insisted, poking at the file with his finger. “The gun is the key. If you can find the gun, you can find out who really did this.” 

“This isn’t enough to prove anything.” 

“So, I don’t have everything. I’m not the detective. Go detect!” Abe said, pointing at the door. 

“The detective work has already been done, Mr. Morgan. I’m just here to find Dr. Morgan and bring him in.” 

“They’ve got the wrong guy. You can’t tell me that you don’t see something suspect with how his case was handled. Those other detectives weren’t the brightest—”

“What I see, Mr. Morgan,” Jo said firmly, cutting him off as she slapped the folder closed, “is the open and shut case of a man who killed his wife and thought he could get away with it. If you don’t have anything that will help me find him, then I’m done here.”

With that, she walked out of the shop, the door falling shut behind her, the bell ringing with a stark finality.

Abe sighed. He’d really thought that he could get her to see the truth. He glanced down, noticing his empty hands. In her haste, she had taken the file with her. Maybe there was hope yet.

\-----

Jo slid into the driver’s seat of her car and looked at the file in her hands. She hadn’t meant to take it with her, but she didn’t really want to go back inside to return it either. She flipped through the file again, looking at it a little more closely than she had with Mr. Morgan staring at her while she read.

As she’d told him inside, the file didn’t hold much. A few hand-written details on the gun in question that looked like they’d been scrawled during the trial. From the ballistics report, the gun had been an antique, and not one you saw very often. That had been part of the prosecution’s case—as an antiques dealer, Henry would have known exactly where to go to get a rare antique gun.

However, as Jo finished reading the file, a nagging thought about where the gun had ended up stayed in the back of her mind. The amount of time between the shooting and the arrival of the paramedics was short. He would have had time to hide the gun, but it would have to have been close, either inside the house or somewhere in the yard out back. Why hadn’t it been found?

Maybe the other detectives _had_ missed something.

No. Jo remembered the terrified sounds Abigail Morgan had made as she had died, slowly and painfully from her gunshot wound. She remembered the photos of a smiling and vibrant young woman the media had shown during the months between the murder and the trial. She closed her eyes as she remembered the numbness and disconnect she had felt as she’d watched, Abigail’s death a background tragedy to the memory of Sean’s casket being lowered into the ground.

Despite the lies he had tried to convince her of on the roof, Henry Morgan was guilty and some pages in a file didn’t change that.

She threw the file in the back seat, turned the car on and pulled out onto the road.

\-----

Henry managed to salvage a battered ball cap from a dumpster as he worked his way across town to the hospital, pulling it down low over his eyes. Between the questionable clothing, bare feet, and now a filthy cap, he managed to turn all eyes away from him. Though he was growing to despise the soiled, ill-fitting clothing he was saddled with, it served him well. The average city dweller was unwilling to engage with anyone too far outside the social norm, and Henry fit the bill. Inconspicuous by way of his conspicuousness.

He was still clean-shaven, and so he was a far cry from the Dr. Morgan on the wanted posters that were littering the city. He’d yet to understand how his resurrection could restore him to perfect health, preserving him as he was two hundred years ago, but have no effect on resetting his personal grooming. He could only be grateful he didn’t have to content with explaining the reappearance of generous sideburns and longer hair on top of everything else that came with his deaths.

The hospital was a hive of activity, as usual. This was the danger zone, the most likely place he’d be spotted, having worked here for a good four years before Abigail’s death, not to mention the omnipresent police officers in and out of the emergency room. It was nearing the end of business day, the day workers—administrative staff, researchers, and lab technicians—all heading home in a mass exodus flowing outward. 

Henry idly drifted closer, never stopping too obviously to be accused of loitering, but keeping an eye on the staff as they flowed past. He spotted a few familiar faces among the crowd, and he carefully turned away and lowering his head to keep the stained brim of the baseball hat obscuring his face.

Finally he spotted the one person he was looking for. He matched the precise step, negotiating the crowded sidewalk, following his target until he was close enough to touch his arm.

“Spare some change?” he said quietly.

“No, I don’t—my god, _Henry_?”

Henry smiled, looking into the shocked face of Dr. Lewis Farber.

“Hello, Lewis. Sorry to bother you like this, but I need a favor.”

\-----

_Henry dropped into the soft lounge chair with a groan, then a hiss as hot coffee slopped over the side of his cup and stung the skin on the back of his hand. He transferred the cup to his other hand and waved his smarting hand to cool it, swearing quietly at the splash of coffee that was now staining his trousers._

_“You look bloody awful,” he heard, and looked up to see Lewis standing at the break room fridge pulling out his lunch._

_“Double shift in the emergency room,” Henry said, blowing on his hand. “I’m getting too old for this.”_

_At least he was blessed with the relatively enduring energy of a thirty-five year old body, rather than creaky age. He often wondered what it would have been like if he’d been killed at fifty, or sixty-five. Or, if like his father, he’d fallen ill and succumbed to old age in his bed. Would he have awoken again an old man? Or, if he’d lived out his life in peace, would he have met a normal end?_

_Henry took a sip of his coffee, letting the scalding liquid steer his thoughts back to present matters. Clearly he was tired if he was drifting off into such pointless, maudlin thoughts._

_Lewis gave a sympathetic grunt, taking his sandwich and taking the lounge chair opposite Henry. Not that his day job in the psychiatric ward tested his stamina in the same way, but his specialized work with violent, unpredictable patients could be as trying as any adventure in the emergency room._

_“At any rate, how are you settling in?” Henry asked._

_Lewis had been at the hospital a matter of weeks now, having come from England with his family. They’d bonded over their London origins, and Henry was grateful for his recent decade there so as to have a little modern perspective on the city to share._

_“Ah, you know how it is, I’m sure,” Lewis said. “New place. Finding my feet. Though, after a while, one place is much like another.”_

_“Mm,” Henry hummed his agreement around another sip of coffee. He knew well enough that feeling. “Indeed, much the same. Though never quite home.”_

_Lewis’ inspection lingered, and then he nodded._

_“Yes. Though they say you can’t ever really go home again.”_

_“Isn’t that the truth,” Henry snorted bitterly. In a fit of nostalgia a decade or so after the Second World War, he’d gone back with little Abraham for a visit to London only to find his family estate cut up into parcels of land, austere and drab apartments looming above him. “Such a shame watching all that land become city. I lost my patience with all that debate before they finally put the Metropolitan Green Belt into action….”_

_Henry caught himself and rubbed his eyes, realizing he was slipping in his fatigue. Well, highly unlikely Lewis was an urban growth historian who knew of London’s interminable puttering for almost fifteen years over putting a border around London’s sprawl. No harm done. Even so, Lewis was eyeing him keenly, sharp and curious._

_“Sorry,” Henry said with an apologetic smile. “Long day.”_

_Lewis nodded briskly, his answering smile broad and friendly._

_“Absolutely understandable.”_

_They both looked up when the break room door opened and Abigail stuck her head in. She looked as tired as Henry felt, working the same double shift as Henry to cover the massive influx of accidents that filled their ER today._

_“Sorry to pull you back, Dr. Morgan, but I have a few patients that need signing off before we can send them upstairs.”_

_“Duty calls,” Henry sighed, levering himself out of the chair. He nodded to Lewis. “Have a good day.”_

_“You as well.”_

_Henry followed Abigail into the hall, took the proffered files and scrawled his signature on the transfer papers for the three patients to be sent onward for x-rays and surgeries. Car accidents were always difficult to see, his own empathy keen for how painful the suffering and death of that sort of accident could be. When he handed them back, Abigail gave him a sleepy nod of thanks, then cracked a yawn, which triggered one of his own._

_“Don’t start yet, we’ve two more hours to soldier through,” he joked lightly, chuckling along with her._

_“I’m painfully aware. I’m taking myself for a big fry-up after this.”_

_“Sounds fantastic.” Breakroom coffee and brief snacks hardly cut it, and the idea of sausages and eggs right now made his mouth water. “A solid plan.”_

_Abigail half-turned away, then changed her mind, turning back to shoot him a sidelong look._

_“You could join me.”_

_Henry paused in the middle of tucking his pen into his lab coat breast pocket, caught on the back foot. He opened his mouth twice without managing to say anything, until Abigail was nearly grinning at his ridiculously flustered expression._

_He should say no. He knew he should say no._

_“Yes. That would be lovely.”_

_He shut his mouth, feeling a fool, but the brilliance of her smile set a pleasant glow burning in his chest, and suddenly he was beaming back at her. At this particular moment, even the thought of sleep was less appealing than the promise of her company. They could sit and talk without the constant interruption of patients and hospital drama._

_Abigail tucked the files under her arm, her cheeks the slightest hint of pink. She darted forward and before he could react, she laid a small peck on his cheek, then pulled back with a wink._

_“It’s a date, then.”_

_She was off, hurrying down the hall with blonde ponytail swinging behind her, and Henry left behind staring after her with thoughts of more than just conversation suddenly brewing in his mind._

_“Good for you, old man.”_

_Henry spun to find Lewis behind him, coffee in hand._

_“Ah, yes, er…” He cleared his throat, then shrugged a bit helplessly._

_Lewis chuckled, then shook his head._

_“Have a good afternoon, Henry. See you soon.”_

_Henry gathered himself and headed down the hall with a little more energy in his step. Perhaps this was a little rash, but damned if he cared right now. Henry whistled as he on his way as he returned to the chaos of the ER._

\-----

Lewis blinked rapidly, staring at Henry blankly for a moment before he shook himself and nodded.

“Yes, of course. What do you need?”

Henry grimaced, looking down at himself. He saw Lewis’ eyes follow his down to his bare feet sticking out beneath the trousers. They were filthy and raw from the walk across town on the harsh concrete, and they ached fiercely.

“If you have some money—anything you have on you. My circumstances are a little dire at the moment.”

Lewis was already rooting in his pocket before Henry could finish speaking, and soon a wad of bills was thrust into his hand.

“There, take it. Henry, tell me what’s going on.”

Henry stuffed the bills into his pocket.

“Thank you, Lewis. As I’m sure is obvious, my departure has caused quite a stir. I don’t want to bring trouble to your door, but…” He swallowed down the fear and guilt. “I didn’t know where else to turn.” Henry noted two security guards near the hospital entrance starting to eye them, suspecting some shady character was bothering Dr. Farber, no doubt. “I should go.”

“Wait, where can I find you?” Lewis pressed, taking a step towards him. “How can I help?”

“This is plenty,” Henry said. “Quite frankly, the less you know, the better.”

“Call me anytime.” Lewis pressed his card into Henry’s hand, then caught it in a firm grip. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find whoever killed Abigail,” he said. Looking into Lewis’ eyes, he was struck by a fierce need to have someone believe him. He remembered looking into the detective’s eyes on the roof, before his jump, before his death. He needed someone to believe him. “I didn’t kill her.”

“I never thought you did, Henry. I never did.”

It was so solid and sure that Henry closed his eyes, sick with relief. Lewis squeezed his hand.

“Call me if you need anything.”

Henry opened his eyes and from the edge of his sight saw the security guards start moving towards them. Henry pulled free of Lewis’ grip and took a step back, ducking his head again.

“I will. Thank you, Lewis. You’re a true friend.”

He hustled away without looking back, moving quickly while trying not to look like he was running, shoulders hunched. He was limping, the bottoms of his feet tender against the rough pavement. First stop, proper clothes.

\-----

Finding a second hand store took Henry longer than he expected. Damn the world for its smartphones and internet—no one used pay phones any longer, and when he did finally find one, the phone book, once a sacrosanct resource for everyone, was non-existent. He took a wander and eventually found what he was looking for, but it was late and closed for the night. He would have to wait for tomorrow.

Scouting the area for somewhere to bed down for the night, Henry made himself a small nest of cardboard outside the back of a restaurant. He settled in, covering himself with the unfolded boxes to brace for a cold night next to stinking refuse, just hidden enough to be out of sight from prying eyes.

He’d slept rough before, but this ranked high among the worst nights he’d experienced in his life. Though he was hungry enough for his stomach to cramp painfully, the cardboard was just enough to keep the chill of the late fall night off him and his exhaustion was so great that he quickly fell into an uneasy, restless sleep.


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When Abe trudged up the stairs and arrived in the kitchen, he frowned at the counter. On it, an uncorked bottle of red wine left to breathe. Next to it, two glasses._
> 
> _“I thought we could both use it.”_
> 
> _Abe whipped around at the sound of the familiar voice, stunned. In the living room, large as life, stood Henry. Beard gone, just a day or two of scruff on his face, dressed like a construction worker instead of his usual polished dandy look, eyes hollowed out with fatigue. Even so, he had a warm, bright smile on his face._
> 
> _“Henry,” Abe breathed._
> 
> _“Hello, Abraham.”_

_Henry adjusted his bow tie one last time before leaning closer to the mirror to inspect his hair._

_“What do you think?”_

_He turned at Abigail’s voice to look at her, now dressed, hair up and makeup in place. She did a little twirl, her smile widening the longer he stood speechless and unable to look away._

_Her dress was the same red as her lipstick and her heels, and it sparkled in the light as she spun around. The skirt fell to to just above her knees and swayed with her movements when she walked toward him._

_“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” she said with a mischievous expression, moving in close to him, her arms looping around his neck._

_He grinned back, slow and suggestive as his hands came to rest on her waist, his touch light._

_“It most certainly is,” he murmured as he pulled her right hand from behind his neck, holding it in his. She moved her other hand to rest on his shoulder and leaned into him as he began swaying them gently around the bedroom._

_“We’re going to be late,” she chided, but there was no real strength behind her words._

_“Mmm,” he agreed, amused, before leaning down and capturing her lips with his._

_They stopped mid-sway and her arms went back around his neck. Her fingernails scraped lightly along his skin, making him shiver, then he winced as they dug in harder._

_“Henry,” she whispered against his lips._

_He stroked her hair and pulled back to look at her. She was terribly pale, her eyes wide and filled with tears._

_“Darling, what’s wrong?” She sagged in his arms, falling, and he cradled her as she dropped to the ground. “Abigail? Abigail, talk to me, darling. Talk to me!”_

_She was ghostly pale now. Blood darkened her beautiful dress, spreading across her stomach. She clung to him, fading fast._

_The slam of a gunshot rang loud in his ears._

_“Henry…”_

A bang, loud and close.

“Hey, you can’t sleep here. Come on buddy, rise and shine.”

Henry startled awake with a surge of panic, looking up to see a city worker loading up the garbage bags into the truck behind him, another standing over him with hands on hips. He scrambled to his feet, ducking down to reach for the battered cap that had fallen off to hastily stuff it on his head. He scurried on quickly to avoid any further inspection from the two men. 

His feet were still tender from the shoeless miles of walking the day before, and his heart and head pounded from the lingering horror of his dream.

Waking up did nothing to spare him the nightmare, however. He was still alone in the city, a wanted criminal. Abigail was still dead. Even months on after the long trial, he still woke expecting to reach out and find her peacefully sleeping next to him.

He’d slept far longer than he thought possible under these conditions, and the second hand store was already open. Barely anyone cast so much as a curious glance his way when he pushed through the door. Given the ripe smell of him, the few people in the store steered well clear—all except for the one clerk who trailed him very unsubtly, watching for any sign of shoplifting.

He selected an outfit, opting for casual—jeans, though he disdained them normally, t-shirt and sweater, a thick olive green jacket that looked to be army surplus, and a wide-brimmed fedora, much like he’d favored in the fifties before such things fell from fashion. To complete the ensemble, sturdy black boots. He never thought he would ever appreciate boots quite so much as he did now.

The clerk was obviously surprised when he made his way to the till and was able to produce some cash for his purchases. Lewis hadn’t had much in his pockets, but it was enough.

“May I change into these here?” he asked. He made the request in his flat American accent, trying to disguise his voice as much as he could.

“Yeah, of course. Go for it.” The man gestured to the back, towards the makeshift change rooms that were little more than cubicles with curtains hanging in front of them. He wrinkled his nose a little as he looked over Henry. “If you want, I can toss those for you.”

“That would be wonderful, thank you. I never want to see them again,” he said, and the clerk chuckled and nodded.

“Okay. Just bring ‘em back when you’re done, we’ll bag it up.”

“Thank you.”

Henry headed off to change, and after returned to the counter with the soiled clothing. The clerk carefully bagged them and tied up the plastic bag, but before Henry turned to go, the clerk stopped him.

“Hey, I don’t know if you—well, anyway. Here.”

Across the counter, the clerk pushed a plastic-wrapped sandwich towards him, clearly homemade, probably pulled from his packed lunch. Henry looked at it, dumbfounded, and then to the clerk. The clerk smiled briefly, the expression tense and somewhat embarrassed. At Henry’s continued silence, he shrugged.

“We all have hard times every once in a while, you know? Anyway. Yeah. If you want it.”

Henry chewed on his bottom lip, then nodded, taking it. It was a gesture of kindness from such an unexpected quarter that, in his exhausted state, he was near moved to tears.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

The clerk shrugged again and turned away, effectively ending the exchange, and Henry left the second hand store, his mood buoyed with hope just a little bit.

As he sat in a nearby alley eating the sandwich—turkey with swiss, gone in a few mouthfuls, given how hungry he was—he tried to think of what to do next. He was determined to find something, anything, that could help him determine Abigail’s killer, but no matter how he ran the ideas over in his mind, there was only one place to start. He was reluctant to drag anyone else into this circle of hell he’d landed himself in, but there was no other choice.

It was time to go see Abe.

 

\-----

 

Despite the police scouring the city, there was no sign of Dr. Morgan’s body, and he hadn’t turned up at any of the hospitals. After Jo’s report no one truly believed Morgan could still be alive; however, without a body, the NYPD reluctantly decided to release news of his escape to the media, along with the information that he was seriously injured and presumed in need of medical attention.

Jo's first stop the morning after Morgan’s escape was the hospital where both Henry and Abigail had worked. If he were to get medical treatment and help on the sly, his previous workplace was the most likely possibility. It didn't look like he'd had any life outside of work or Abe, so if he went to anyone for help, it would be here. Medical colleagues would also have the necessary knowledge and resources to help him if he were injured.

"Can I help you?"

The woman sitting behind the reception desk was cheerful. Overly so, and it grated on Jo’s nerves. She flashed her badge.

"Jo Martinez, NYPD. I'm here to talk to anyone who worked with or knew Dr. Henry Morgan."

The receptionist's eyes widened. It took her a few seconds, but she reached for her desk phone.

"Let me just make a call."

Jo rested her hip against the desk and settled in to wait when a voice came from behind her.

"I worked with Dr. Morgan.”

Jo turned. A tall, lanky man in hospital scrubs stood behind her, coffee in hand and his earnest expression almost unsettling.

“I’m Lucas.” He cleared his throat. “Lucas Wahl. I work in the blood lab. I knew Dr. Rayne too.”

“Is there somewhere we can talk in private, Mr. Wahl?” Jo looked around the crowded lobby.

He nodded and led her to a small and empty breakroom down the hall. He shut the door after her and took the seat across from her at the small, round table in the middle of the room.

“Has Dr. Morgan been to see you?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. This man was like a puppy. Eager to please, but awkward. He would help Henry if asked, but she doubted he would have spoken to her if he had seen him. Lucas didn’t look like he was the type to be a good liar.

“No, Dr. Morgan and I aren’t close. I would help him if he came to me, but...I mean…” he trailed off awkwardly, and Jo waited for him to continue. Faced with the intensity of her stare and her silence, Lucas stuttered and kept talking. “He never really talked to me much, or anybody really. Not before he met Dr. Rayne. She really helped him open up.”

Jo raised an eyebrow at that.

“I thought he stayed closed off, even after meeting Abigail. That she became secretive as well.”

“I dunno about that. He was never one to share details about his personal life, but after they met, he was happy,” Lucas said with a shrug. “He came into work smiling and would compliment us if we’d done a good job. Like I said, we still weren’t close, but he was...friendlier after they got together.”

“Was Abigail as open after they met?” Jo asked, even if she wasn’t sure why. She was here to find Henry, not look into the murder case. Which was closed. And not hers.

“She was always nice to me, but she stopped hanging out with the others after shifts. Not like she was a regular at pub nights or anything. She didn’t completely shut down. She just became private. Like Henry.”

Jo nodded, and moved back to her original line of questioning.

“Do you know where he would go? Anybody who would be willing to help him?”

“I don’t know much about his personal life, and he didn’t seem that close to anyone here except for Abigail. Although,” he frowned, thinking for a moment, “you should talk to Dr. Farber. I would see them talking in the break room a lot. He might know more than I do.”

“Do you know if he’s working today?”

“He should be. His office is downstairs. I can show you. There’s a coffee bar on the way? I could get you something if you need, some kind of frappe thing. Or juice? If you don’t like coffee?” He said the last part hopefully, and Jo had to suppress a smile and an eye-roll at the clumsy attempt at flirting.

“I’m sure I can find it. Thank you for your time, Mr. Wahl.”

“Yeah! Yeah, of course. I’ll just, uh….” He leapt to his feet and backed up, jerking his thumbs towards the door, then turned and fled. She shook her head and gave him a few seconds to escape before she exited the break room as well.

Once downstairs, she approached the receptionist, and once again flashed her badge. Thankfully, Dr. Farber had some open space on his calendar in between patients, and she was directed to his office.

“Detective,” Dr. Farber said, and greeted her with a pleasant smile. Jo heard the accent and wondered if he and the Morgans had formed a club.

“Has Dr. Morgan come to see you since he escaped?” Jo asked once she had sat down in one of the chairs facing the doctor’s desk, not wasting time.

“Ah.” Dr. Farber’s smile dropped a bit and he sat up straighter. “Yes. He has.”

Jo looked at him in surprise as he admitted it so freely.

“He has? When was this?”

“Yesterday. He approached me as I was leaving for the day.”

“Did he say where he was going?” Jo asked as she leaned forward. He had been here just yesterday. He might still be in the city.

Dr. Farber shook his head.

“He wouldn’t tell me anything. He asked for some money, and I gave him what I had on me, but when I tried to offer more assistance, he told me the less I knew the better, and walked away.”

“Do you have any idea where he might go?”

Dr. Farber paused for a moment before shaking his head.

“I’m afraid he didn’t have many friends or family that I knew of. He might go to Abraham, his old roommate, but apart from him, I don’t know that he had anyone else to go to. If he did, I doubt he would have asked me for money.”

Jo sighed. He was right. They already had someone watching the antique shop, and he hadn’t shown up there.

“Detective,” Dr. Farber began and Jo turned her attention back to him. “I’m sure you’re good at your job, or at least better than the officers originally put on his case who found him guilty, but you’ll never catch him. He’s too smart.”

“What, smarter than you?” Something in the way he spoke rankled and her tone was harsher than she had intended.

Dr. Farber’s expression turned thoughtful.

“You know, I’m not certain,” he said, then he smiled at her. “But it’s possible.”

Jo smiled back, sharp and cold.

“I’ll bet you can help. From what I’ve been told, you knew him better than anyone at this hospital, with the exception of the victim.”

Dr. Farber leaned forward, intent and focused.

“Why would I do that? So you can take him back to prison? He’s innocent.”

“Dr. Farber, I know you want to help your friend, but if there’s anything you’re not telling me, I will have you arrested for obstruction.”

“I’ve told you the truth, Detective. I don’t know where Henry is, and despite what you seem to think about our working relationship, I don’t know him well enough to guess where he might go next.” He stood then, and Jo followed suit. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a patient coming in five minutes.”

He ignored her, and Jo left, irritated by the dismissal as much as his insistence. She was getting tired of hearing that Henry Morgan was an innocent man.

 

\-----

 

She interviewed several other staff members who had known either Dr. Morgan or Dr. Rayne, but no one had been close enough to either of them to give her anything she hadn’t already learned from Lucas or Dr. Farber.

Dr. Morgan had been professional, but aloof, and Dr. Rayne had become more distant after they had become involved, but almost every single person she interviewed talked about how in love the pair had seemed. He looked at her like she was the sun and, as Lucas had said, he became friendlier, less prickly under her influence. She had put distance between herself and her colleagues, but even so, it was clear in her body language, in the way she spoke to him and about him, that she was just as smitten as he, they said.

Or, at least as happily in love as a man like that could pretend to be.

Jo remembered that stage. The butterflies, the stolen glances, the blushes, the fancy and impressive dates. Jo and Sean had been wrapped up in each other too, unconsciously putting distance between others so that they could spend more time together.

But neither she or Sean had been a murderer. She could never dream of having turned that kind of violent fury on him, or him on her.

She thanked the last person she interviewed with as much politeness as she could force, a nurse who had just finished a shift in the ER and didn’t know anything about Henry outside work. None of them knew where he might be, and Jo scowled as soon as the nurse walked away.

She rubbed her eyes. She could feel a headache starting behind her eyes, and the lack of real information and the accounts of how happy and in love Henry and Abigail had seemed had put her in a foul mood. The hospital was a dead end. She needed to get back to the station and see what else she could do to catch this bastard.

 

\-----

 

After a day of putting up with a string of grumpy, entitled customers, Abe was done and ready to pack it in early.

The crankiness he could deal with. The real final straw had been selling Henry’s leather bag, the one that had held his doctor’s kit over the decades. Black and sleek, in fine condition despite its years of use, and a good piece. The podiatrist from Long Island looked pleased as punch with his find and so Abe had felt that at least it was going to a good home, but afterwards it had felt like a betrayal, the action of a son who had given up on his dad.

Abe took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was a long day and he was tired, that’s all it was. If he got sentimental about all of Henry’s antiques, he was going to go broke pretty quick. Tossing down his glasses on the desk, Abe finished tidying up the last sales receipts and then locked the door for the day. Sign turned to closed, he left the shop behind. Hopefully he could wash away the stress of the day with a glass of wine or two.

What he wouldn’t give to sit down with Henry like they’d always done and have a nice glass of wine together. Relax, talk about their days. Too often over the years it had been silent nights, the years sitting heavy on Henry. It was a trend that coincided with age getting the better of Abe’s body, and he knew that his inevitable mortality was too much on Henry’s mind. But after Abigail, Henry had lit up with hope and become chatty again. When he brought Abigail along to visit, Abe and her hit it off. Abe had joked with her about her being a stepmom at such a young and tender age, but she’d merely kissed him on the head and told him that if he ever needed any motherly guidance, she’d be happy to help.

She’d been something else, that Abigail. Nothing phased her or brought her down. Not until….

It was already old, sad territory. Even though he knew it was time to put it behind him, since the sentencing, Henry’s disappearance, and the manhunt, Abe’s thoughts had been full of nothing but Henry and Abigail.

When Abe trudged up the stairs and arrived in the kitchen, he frowned at the counter. On it, an uncorked bottle of red wine left to breathe. Next to it, two glasses.

“I thought we could both use it.”

Abe whipped around at the sound of the familiar voice, stunned. In the living room, large as life, stood Henry. Beard gone, just a day or two of scruff on his face, dressed like a construction worker instead of his usual polished dandy look, eyes hollowed out with fatigue. Even so, he had a warm, bright smile on his face.

“Henry,” Abe breathed.

“Hello, Abraham.”

In an instant Abe crossed the distance between them and embraced Henry, who welcomed him with a sound of relief that might have been a sob. Abe laughed and pounded Henry on the back, overjoyed at the strong arms around him, and nearly lifted Henry off his feet in his enthusiasm.

“My god, you and your dramatic entrances,” Abe said, sniffing back the tears, still half-disbelieving that Henry was here. “How the hell did you get in here? Did anyone see you? I’m sure they’re watching the shop. It’s been a zoo, I had a detective come here asking questions about you, and—”

“Abe, Abe, slow down,” Henry said, laughing. “I’m fairly certain no one saw me come in. Took a bit of time to avoid the police surveilling the shop, and a bit of fancy work with the back door. You’ll want to have someone take a look at that lock tonight, sorry.”

“Ah, never mind that,” Abe said, taking Henry and turning him towards the kitchen. “Come on, sit down, you look like crap. I’ll get you something to eat.”

Henry let Abe chase him to the kitchen table, and Abe set to work on a hot coffee and a sandwich for Henry, both of which disappeared with worrying speed. Henry was finally settled on the couch with that glass of wine before either of them set to broaching the inevitable topic.

“What are you going to do?” Abe asked. “Are you going to leave town?”

Henry shook his head, taking a sip from his glass then setting it down on the living room table.

“No. I have to find whoever killed Abigail,” Henry said. “I have an opportunity. I don’t care what happens to me, but there is a killer out there. He took her life. I can’t let him get away with that. Abigail deserves justice.”

Abe nodded. Much as he wanted to send Henry packing, far away from where the law could find him, he did understand. And, knowing his father, there was no point arguing. He was as pig-headed as he was smart, and once his mind was set on a task, there was no deviation. Besides, if anyone could find Abigail’s killer, it was likely Henry. So long as he could avoid the police long enough to actually work on it.

“Which is what brought me here,” Henry continued, shuffling to the edge of the couch and facing Abe. “The ballistics report. I know you requested it during the trial. Did you get it?”

“Yeah, I didn’t have much luck with it. Tried your lawyer first but couldn’t get him to talk to me because _someone_ told him not to,” he gave Henry an unimpressed glare, “and the police—hah, you can imagine how that conversation went. I took notes at the trial, and then your lawyer goes and calls to tell me not to look into anything in case it might ‘damage your position’ while the trial was going on. Then everything went to hell right after, and here we are.”

Henry looked chastened by Abe’s not-so-subtle digs, and then cleared his throat, mouth downturned in unhappy guilt.

“I’m sorry, Abe. I know this has been—”

“No, no. None of that,” Abe said, quickly waving away Henry’s apologies. Everything had spiraled out of control, and no doubt Henry had being doing his irritating best to protect Abe. But he was here for help now, and so Abe would help him. “Tell me what you’re after.”

“I want to pursue finding the weapon. I am certain the police did nothing with it as soon as they decided I was guilty—which, as far as I can tell, is the moment I was brought in for questioning the night Abigail was murdered. Can I take a look at your notes?”

“Well, that’s gonna be hard. This detective came by yesterday—Martinez was her name. I had a good feeling about her. Thought she might listen, so I gave all the information I had to her. Hoped it might be enough to get her looking at the case again.” He put a hand on his forehead. “That was stupid, I should have made a copy.”

He grimaced at the resignated droop of Henry’s shoulders. Henry blinked for a moment, then looked up at Abe.

“Martinez? Dark hair, tall, slim, mid-thirties?”

“That’s her.” Henry paled, and Abe nodded. “Yeah, heard you had a run-in with her. Did you, ah….” Abe waved a finger around aimlessly, and Henry took his meaning.

“Yes, I did.” He rolled his eyes, sighing. “Apparently getting shot and falling off a building is not convincing enough to be ruled dead without a body present. I should have expected as much, even if I’d hoped she would let it go.”

Abe winced in sympathy for Henry’s death, and along with it came the wave of guilt that he hadn’t been there to pick him up. Somehow Henry had come through it, though. After all, the man hadn’t survived two centuries without picking up a trick or two.

Abe took another sip of his wine and then set it on the coffee table next to Henry’s glass.

“Well anyway, at least they’re looking for someone injured, and you’re not anymore,” Abe said. “I guess I can go get that information back from Detective Martinez. Might have to wait a day or two though. If I go ask her for it right now, I’m only going to draw attention to it and she’ll get suspicious.”

Henry stood, a familiar glint in his eye that meant trouble.

“Then I’ll go get it.”

Henry abruptly started for the hallway leading to his bedroom, and Abe scrambled up after him.

“Henry? Henry!” He hurried to catch up with his father and grabbed him by the shoulder, halting him and swinging him back around. Henry’s jaw was set in stubborn determination. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to abuse your hospitality and have a shower. Aside from an unscheduled dip in the river, I haven’t had the opportunity to do so in a while.”

“Don’t give me that,” Abe snapped. “You know what I mean. What are you planning?”

Henry unbent enough that he put his hands on Abe’s shoulders, smiling gently.

“A little subterfuge. I need that information, and the police have it. I have no other leads to follow, Abe, and I can’t waste any time that I have. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

Henry pulled Abe into another hug. Abe returned it, simultaneously possessed of the need to shake Henry until he promised not to do it, to run and go far from here where no one could catch him, and filled with the hope he could find Abigail’s killer and clear his name. Henry seemed to pick up on his distress and gently rubbed his back like he was a little kid in need of comfort.

Abe pushed him away with a wrinkled nose, and Henry frowned at him in confusion.

“Jeez, Henry. Go take that shower. You smell like a garbage heap.”

Henry laughed, and with a last clap on Abe’s shoulder he headed for the bathroom.


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Wait!” Jo said, slamming a hand against the iron gate in frustration. “Henry, how far do you think you’re going to get? Every police officer in the city is looking for you. Give yourself up.”_
> 
> _Henry stopped, head hung low, his hands convulsing into clenched fists before relaxing. He turned on his heel with surprising dignity and faced her with squared shoulders. The relaxed, confident attitude was belied only by the faint tremor in his voice._
> 
> _“Not until I find the man who killed my wife,” Henry said firmly, gesturing with a hand towards the city beyond them. “He’s out there, and I’m going to find him. When I’m done, I promise you can have me and do whatever you want with me. Straight to your desk, Detective, hands behind my head, ready for arrest. But not before I find Abigail’s killer.”_

After another uneasy sleep, though in a mercifully soft bed this time, Henry was ready for his foray into the 11th Precinct.

After his shower, he’d slipped out of the apartment and spent a few hours of lurking outside the precinct, a venture which yielded a janitor’s badge, plucked with light-fingered skill during the night shift change. He’d done a bit of modification to replace the picture with his own from a photo booth in the subway, rustled up a suitable workman’s outfit, and set himself to practicing a loping, casual walk that was nothing like his. Shoulders slumped, head down, as different from his own posture as possible. When necessary, he could be a good actor, though for most of his years he’d preferred flight to camouflage.

Abe was beside himself with fretting and had encouraged Henry to leave town at least a dozen times throughout the process, but eventually had resigned himself to the fact that Henry was going to do this.

Henry decided on the evening shift as his preferred time of entry, and with a gulping breath walked through the front doors of the precinct along with the other janitorial staff making their slow arrival at 7:00pm. His badge was given only a cursory inspection by one idle police officer near the entrance, but he wasn’t challenged and he made his way to the elevators with his heart in his throat.

After a bit of aimless wandering, Henry found the janitorial room and got himself a cart, managing to avoid other staff without too much effort, and pushed along the halls looking for a likely access point to the files he needed.

Rather than find Detective Martinez’ desk and locate the file Abe had given her, he decided to try and locate the original ballistics report. No doubt it would be electronically stored, as most data was these days, which meant computers. Oh, he was not looking forward to this.

Henry had a passing familiarity with the hospital’s electronic filing system, but he and computers had never gotten along. Even that assessment was charitable—he despised computers, and he was certain that they knew it and accordingly punished him for his lack of reverence, like some old god that demanded obeisance and sacrifices to perform its miracles. Given enough time he was sure he could find what he was looking for, but who knew if he was going to get that.

It took a bit of actual janitorial work, dusting and wiping and cleaning his way through the offices, before Henry found a work station abandoned with a terminal left open where he could get into the search and run a quick check for anything with his name. He paged through a list of Henry Morgans until he found himself. A public indecency charge from a year and a half ago came up first. Henry flinched at the unexpected reminder. An emotional night, with far too many ups and downs.

It had been a treasured memory, until Abigail’s death made him wish it had never happened.

\-----

_Henry walked out of the police station and headed straight for Abe’s car, which was idling right out in front of the precinct. The NYPD issue sweatpant and sweatshirt were preferable to nudity, but the unfamiliar feeling of the cotton against his wet skin didn’t help alleviate any of the panic he was feeling._

_It had finally happened. He’d known getting involved with someone could never end well, but he’d convinced himself that it was alright, that what he had with the beautiful Dr. Rayne wasn’t that serious, and that it wouldn’t do any harm to return her smiles or accept her invitations to dinner. But he had fallen harder than he’d expected—and really, he’d been a goner from the beginning—and now he’d died in front of her._

_“Henry, what happened?” Abe asked, looking worried, as he slid into the passenger seat._

_“She knows.” Henry said, his hands only shaking a little as he buckled his seat belt. “She saw me die.”_

_“Abigail?” Abe asked as he pulled the car out onto the road._

_Henry nodded, looking down at his hands where they lay in his lap. He needed to get home. He needed to change and pack and leave._

_“What happened?” Abe asked. “I thought you were meeting Abigail for your date. I didn’t expect to get a call from the police station.”_

_Henry couldn’t keep the emotion, the panic out of his voice as he answered._

_“I was mugged. He had a knife.”_

_Henry closed his eyes for a moment as he remembered Abigail’s screams from down the sidewalk as soon as he’d crumpled to the ground. She’d been a block away, he’d seen her moving towards him where they’d agreed to meet. Then the arm around him from behind, the numbness and then fiery pain in his back, then the abrupt release at the sound of Abigail’s cry and nearing footfalls._

_“The mugger ran away, but Abigail saw the whole thing,” Henry said to Abe._

_She’d run to Henry, calling for help, and sobbed his name as she’d cradled him in her arms._

_“Henry, hang on, it’s going to be alright,” Abigail had said through her tears, her words more reassuring than her tone. She’d pulled her cell phone out of her clutch. “I’m going to call 911 and the paramedics will be here in no time.”_

_He’d moved his hand to stop her, ineffectively pawing at the phone in her hand._

_“No. No hospitals. You can’t call 911.”_

_“Henry, you need a doctor.”_

_“You won’t understand, I’m so sorry,” he’d said, his words slurring._

_“Don’t be sorry, it’s going to be fine.” She’d pulled her cellphone out of his reach, and begun to dial._

_“No, don’t call….” He’d tried to move his hand up again, but it had felt heavy and wouldn’t move._

_And then he’d woken up in the river. The cops had found him only a few minutes after he got out of the water, and he’d been itching to run ever since._

_“We have to leave.” he said, not meeting Abe’s eyes._

_“No.”_

_“What?” Henry looked up at Abe in surprise._

_“I’m not going. If you want to go, you can, but I’m staying and I think you should too.”_

_“Abraham…” Henry started, trying to get his son to see reason, but Abe just shook his head._

_“No. I’m too old for all of this. Besides,” Abe said, “she needs to know. She loves you. She’ll understand.”_

_Henry looked at Abe, his expression anguished. He’d left Abe behind before, but never with Abe’s mortality hanging over them like this._

_“I can’t…” Henry began, his breathing short and his chest tight._

_“She’s not Nora,” Abe said softly, and Henry simply closed his eyes._

_He opened them as he felt the car come to a stop. He unbuckled his seat belt and opened the car door before he actually looked around at where they were. He stopped. Abraham had driven them to Abigail’s house._

_“Abraham,” Henry said, his voice low as he turned back to face his son, “we need to go home.”_

_“No, you need to tell her. You can’t run again,” Abe insisted, putting the car in park._

_“I can’t, Abraham, you know that,” Henry said, before reaching for his door to pull it closed._

_“Henry?”_

_Henry, his arm still extended, looked up and saw Abigail standing at the top of the steps leading to her door. She had changed out of the little black dress she’d been wearing earlier into pajamas and an oversized robe that hung open. Her hand was covering her mouth, and her other arm curled around her stomach._

_Abe gave him a little push, and taking a deep breath, he got out of the car. He walked up the steps, and put his hands up in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture._

_“I know what you think you saw, but there’s a perfectly—”_

_She pulled him into a hug, and he floundered for a moment, his hands still sticking out before he relaxed in her embrace, his arms moving to pull her closer to him._

_“Oh, love,” she breathed into his ear, and he closed his eyes as he pulled her in even tighter. “You poor man.”_

_They stood on the steps for a few moments, just holding each other, and Henry could hardly believe that this was real. He hadn’t been able to imagine such a reaction, had thought that running was his only option, but this lionhearted woman who had found her way into his life and his heart just held him and showed him love instead of horror and disbelief._

_Henry barely registered the sound of Abe’s car as it started behind him and drove away, but let himself be led into Abigail’s house._

\-----

In the precinct, Henry shook himself out of his memories, sniffing and wiping hastily at his eyes. He glanced around to make sure he was still unobserved and went back to scrolling through his large file. The murder case documents with interviews and evidence reports came up next. Henry leaned in with interest, clicking through the list.

Near the bottom, mixed in among everything else, was the ballistics report. After a fair bit more poking around the screen, Henry managed to print the information.

Finding the printer turned out to be another challenge altogether. He eventually stood in the middle of the quiet office and listened carefully for the sound of the machine chugging away, and located the printer quietly spewing out papers around the corner near a deserted break room.

Henry snatched the three pages off the printer and stuffed the still-warm sheets into his button-down shirt, scanning around him again. The floor was quiet with most everyone gone home for the day.

Henry wasn’t willing to waste another minute on lingering in the precinct, and so opted to leave the cart and cleaning supplies where they stood in the middle of the office floor. Perhaps not the stealthiest of moves, but certainly saved him precious minutes in getting out of the building. Now that he had his objective, the ice water of fear had started to flow through his veins, prodding him to flee as fast as possible.

\-----

Jo popped a few chewable antacids into her mouth and crunched them down, hoping to quell her heartburn. At a certain point she would have to admit that caffeine wasn’t going to replace the missing hours of sleep, but the Morgan case was dogging her thoughts night and day, so she kept pursuing leads and fueling her efforts with coffee. It was long past the end of the day, gone dark outside, but she wanted to make a few more phone calls before she left the precinct.

“Time to call it, Jo.”

As though reading her mind, Hanson appeared by her desk, arms folded.

“What are you still doing here?” she asked. She’d been so absorbed in her work that she hadn’t noticed him at his desk.

“Told Karen that my crazy partner needed some backup tonight. I’ve been doing up reports for our other two cases while you follow up on the Morgan file.”

“Oh. Thanks,” she said, looking down at her messy desk spread with notes, all devoted to finding Morgan. “Guess I got a little focused.”

“Yeah, that’s one word for it.”

She shrugged, rinsing down the antacids with water before responding.

“You know how it is. I really want this one closed.”

“Morgan’s probably lying dead in a gutter somewhere. Only a matter of time before his body turns up.”

“Hm,” she grunted, unconvinced.

She’d shot him _and_ he’d jumped off a building, but Jo couldn’t ditch the nagging certainty that there was more to the story yet to come. No body, and then the weirdly unemotional response from Abe Morgan about someone who was apparently like family. Perhaps he had seen Henry, and she should head back there to press him again—

“C’mon, Jo. I’ve got this feeling that if I leave you here I’m going to come back and find you drooling on your desk in the morning.”

She shot him a dirty look, and he raised his eyebrows as though challenging her to disagree with him. She wasn’t totally sure that she could, so she surrendered.

“Fine. I’ll head out with you, give me five.”

Hanson nodded at the small victory and headed back to his desk.

It was just as well she’d let Hanson badger her into it—she needed to go home, have a glass or two of wine, and try to get some sleep and forget about Henry Morgan for a precious few hours.

Hanson went with her as she shrugged into her jacket, and they entered the elevator together to head for the main floor.

“How about you come over for a late dinner? Karen would love to see you. It’s been too long.”

She shook her head, knowing she was in no mood for socializing tonight.

“I should head home though—another time, maybe. Thanks, though.”

Hanson frowned at her quick dismissal.

“Jo, come on. When’s the last time you did anything except work and sleep?”

“I get out,” she objected—weakly. There wasn’t much to report. There’d been that thing last week with André, but she wasn’t going to be doing that again any time soon. Sean was still too much a part of her life to get anything other than a bit of stress relief and a lot of guilt out of a one night stand.

“Sean would have wanted you to go on with your life,” Hanson said quietly. He looked uneasy, treading carefully on emotional ground, but he persevered. “You know if you ever want to talk, you can—ah, you know.”

He grimaced, and Jo smiled at his discomfiture. At least he tried, and full points for that. 

“Yeah, I know. I’ll be fine, don’t worry about it,” she said.

The elevator opened and they crossed the lobby for the glass doors that lead out to the street.

Hanson let her go first, his attention partially occupied by his phone as he texted his wife to let her know he was on his way home. They walked through the door behind a night janitor, who held the door for them. 

“Seeya tomorrow, Hanson,” she said, and as she did, the janitor turned back toward her, and she looked full into his face.

Jo suddenly realized she wasn’t going to get that glass of wine any time soon.

\-----

Henry forced himself to a normal step—the loping walk he’d practiced, head to the floor, eyes deferentially cast away from anyone who passed. The halls were long, the stairs too many, and the lobby too grand, all a horrible reminder of his last departure from here involving a searing fall and a fast impact with a car roof.

The doors to the street were in front of him, the setting sun edging the city towards dusk with each passing minute, and Henry breathed a sigh of relief as he walked through the door and felt a brisk breeze on his cheeks.

Henry automatically held the door for a couple behind him so it didn’t drop on them, then took a few steps before freezing at the sound of the woman’s voice.

“Seeya tomorrow Hanson.”

_Henry, I don’t want to shoot you, but I will._

Unable to stop himself, he twisted around with a start and came face to face with Detective Martinez. Another detective was at her side, the aforementioned Hanson, both of them a mere few paces from him.

It took her a moment to process his face, but then her mouth dropped open with gobsmacked surprise, all three of them frozen in tableau.

“You’re _alive_ ,” she gasped.

“Son of a bitch,” Hanson swore, scrambling for his gun holster as he fumbled his phone and it clattered to the ground. “Henry Morgan, freeze!”

The spell finally broken, Henry snapped into action and sprinted directly into traffic.

\-----

Morgan dashed out in front of a delivery truck barrelling down the street, his form flashing bright white temporarily in the headlights, barely missing becoming a wet splotch on the pavement.

Which he _should_ have been anyway—even if he’d miraculously survived the fall, she’d _shot_ the bastard. Instead he was scampering off like a rabbit, dodging through traffic with impressive ease as cars and trucks ground to a halt, the crunch of smashing bumpers and screaming horns creating a horrible cacophony. Somehow he made it to the far side without dying.

How many lives did this guy have?

Hanson was waving his gun and badge at cars that were starting to move again, working his way across the road in pursuit. Jo followed behind, pulling her badge and doing the same, catching up by the time Hanson reached the other side.

“He’s headed down 24th,” Hanson huffed as Morgan made a dodge around a pair of elderly ladies and nearly took himself out on a newspaper box before careening around the corner.

Jo put on extra speed to keep him in sight, shouting and brandishing her badge to clear people out of the way as she went. Hanson was managing to keep up at her side, but his breathing was harsh. She had him beat on speed, and she was pulling ahead.

They rounded the corner in time to see Morgan look about wildly and make a dash across the street towards and into a parking garage.

“Stay on him, I’ll circle around,” Hanson shouted, veering off. “See if I can cover the main back exit!”

Jo only had time to nod as she kept running, dodging around parked cars and across the street to follow Morgan’s trajectory parking garage, the sodium vapor lights casting their harsh orange glow on the ramp leading them below ground. She fell into a steady rhythm as she ran down the curve until arriving on the first level.

In the echoing concrete garage she could hear the rapid beat of footfalls ahead, and a flash of the dark blue janitor’s uniform Morgan was wearing. Jo switched directions and ran between two rows of cars as her quarry did the same. She was gaining, slowly but surely, both of them headed towards the far wall where a door out the other side of the parking garage most likely lead to the inside of the building—an office building, she realized.

Morgan pitched up against the door and yanked on the handle. It didn’t open. With a panicked cry he wrenched on it again. She picked up speed, knowing she had a few precious seconds to catch up before he took off in another direction to find a different exit. She didn’t bother wasting breath on calling out to him to stop. He wasn’t the type to listen, he’d shown that amply already.

She was ten feet away when Morgan whipped around, eyes darting to either side, then widening as he realized how close she was. But he was off-balance, and his momentum no match for hers as he started running again. Jo made a dive for him just as he turned to run and caught him by the front of his shirt. Her fingers hooked into one breast pocket, the force ripping it right off the shirt. Morgan managed to flail back as she hit the ground with a grunt.

She was clutching only a handful of cloth and a janitor’s badge.

“I’m sorry!” Morgan blurted, back-pedalling frantically, eyes wide, palms out to her. “I’m—I’m sorry!”

“Stop right there!” she shouted, rolling to get her feet under her.

He started running again.

Jo scrambled up and tore after him, determined to catch him this time.

He dodged and wove through cars, making it to a back entrance, a metal grid gate showing a narrow alley style street beyond. No sign of Hanson. Poor luck, he’d probably picked the ramp exit—no way to cover all exits to a building this size with just the two of them. The heavy metal door clanged when Morgan careened through it, and he slammed it shut behind him. Jo didn’t have time to stop and pitched up against it. She righted herself and yanked at it.

It was locked. It had latched behind him.

“Damn it!” she swore, rattling the door, then drawing her gun. “Henry, freeze!”

He stood on the other side of the gate, his chest heaving, staring at her as though he could barely believe his luck. He dragged the back of his hand across his face to wipe off the sheen of sweat and started to laugh—a crazed, nervous sound. He dropped his hand and shook his head.

“You can’t shoot me. The grill of the gate isn’t wide enough for you to shoot through it. You’ll injure yourself with the blowback.”

He was right, of course. She lowered the gun and stepped close to the door. He was a tantalizing two feet from her, close enough she could see the thud of his pulse on his neck. He was healthy and whole, not even a scratch on his face to show for falling seven stories.

“I shot you,” Jo said, staring at him. She laced her fingers through the metal grill, putting her face close. “I shot you, and you fell off a building.”

Henry’s hand went to his shoulder—the shoulder she knew she’d put a bullet through—and then dropped just as fast. He backed up a few steps and turned to go.

“Wait!” Jo said, slamming a hand against the iron gate in frustration. “Henry, how far do you think you’re going to get? Every police officer in the city is looking for you. Give yourself up.”

Henry stopped, head hung low, his hands convulsing into clenched fists before relaxing. He turned on his heel with surprising dignity and faced her with squared shoulders. The relaxed, confident attitude was belied only by the faint tremor in his voice.

“Not until I find the man who killed my wife,” Henry said firmly, gesturing with a hand towards the city beyond them. “He’s out there, and I’m going to find him. When I’m done, I promise you can have me and do whatever you want with me. Straight to your desk, Detective, hands behind my head, ready for arrest. But _not_ before I find Abigail’s killer.”

Silence hung between them, punctuated only by the roar of traffic and the sounds of night life in the city. His piece said, Henry’s gaze broke away and he turned to go. Jo said nothing as he trotted off and out of sight, leaving her behind with her legs trembling from fatigue and her heart still recovering from the chase.

She should have called for backup—should have done already, so they could set up a cordon and make sure Morgan didn’t slip through, but she’d been too focused on her target. Hanson had dropped his phone, he wouldn’t have been able to call it in. Even so, it took her a good minute to shake it off and reach for her phone. Probably useless, as in that time a man could slip into the cracks and disappear. Especially some as smart as Dr. Morgan.

 _He’s too smart._ Lewis Farber’s smug words echoed in her thoughts, and she kicked at an abandoned crunched-up soda can at her feet while waiting for dispatch to answer.

Nothing about this straight-forward case made any sense.


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Henry staggered back. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed and covered his mouth, staring at what amounted to a shrine of his own life._
> 
> _Whoever this was, they were obsessed. Obsessed with Henry, with his life. These pictures, these notes, stretched backward through time. They knew about his immortality. This was never about Abigail, this was about him. She’d died because of him._
> 
> _Was Abe next? How could he protect his son when he’d failed to protect Abigail?_

“So riddle me this,” Hanson said, leaning back in his desk chair, pocketing his scratched but mercifully recovered phone. “Why does a guy risk everything to get in here? I mean, you’d have to be nuts to march into a precinct. And he does it _twice_. First time he got hauled in—and let me tell you, Lieu ripped the desk sergeant a new one, you should have seen it, Jo—but this time, second time, he snuck in. So he _chose_ to stroll in here, even though every single uniform in the city is looking for him.”

Hanson threw the fake janitor’s badge onto the table between them, with Henry Morgan’s curly-haired photo gracing it. Jo picked it up, and Henry’s eyes seemed to bore into her. She’d once thought of them as threatening, sharp, with the intelligence of a predator. To her now, he only looked tired. Shouldn’t be surprising, given what he’d been through.

Jo threw the badge back down in disgust. Feeling sorry for an escaped convict was not a great train of thought for a detective to have, especially a man who’d killed his wife.

But as each day passed, as more and more questions came to the surface, and the further she looked into the case that had been built against Morgan during the investigation and the trial, the harder it got to believe that he was guilty. A lot of it was circumstantial at best.

The gun, that’s what really rankled. Without the gun, there were too many questions, but they hadn’t—

The _gun._

Jo hopped out of the chair by Hanson’s desk and and trotted back to her own. She fired up her computer and opened the search terminal to call up Henry’s file.

“What have you got there?” Hanson asked, following after her.

“The ballistics report on the weapon that killed Abigail Morgan,” Jo said as she pulled up the report. “They never found it, no trace of it at all. But let’s say you wanted definitive proof of who killed her—you’d need that weapon. Wouldn’t you?”

Hanson straightened, eyebrows raised.

“You think this is what Morgan broke in here for? The ballistics report?”

Jo looked at the access record for Henry’s file. The previous access had been from a terminal a floor up, less than two hours ago—right before they’d run into him going out of the precinct. Jo poked her finger at the login info.

“Who else would have accessed it in the last two hours?”

“Damn, this guy has some balls.”

Hanson almost sounded impressed, and she couldn’t blame him. She was starting to think that Morgan was surviving on sheer tenacity alone.

“He keeps saying he didn’t kill her. Maybe he’s looking for something to prove someone else did.”

“You think he’s innocent?” Hanson asked, lowering his voice.

“I don’t know,” Jo sighed. “But I do think he’s after this gun. So, if we want to find him, maybe we should be too.”

Hanson returned to the report, flipping through the paperwork. He whistled low, pulling out the photo of the bullet and twisting it so Jo could see it.

“I recognize this. My dad was a gun nut, had a collection of old models. This is an antique, 1900s stuff. Something like this should be traceable.”

“Ballistics says it’s a .30 Luger pistol cartridge, for a Swiss Luger pistol, manufactured sometime around 1910—hey, good eye, Hanson. According to the original case notes, they got as far as contacting one antiques dealer and tracking down a few Lugers. They were all licenced antiques and traced to current owners, no connection to Morgan, no sign of any of them being fired recently. Looks like beyond that, the gun lead was never pursued because the case was rolling ahead towards a conviction and considered a done deal with the evidence they had.”

“Hm,” Hanson said, frowning his disapproval. Jo had to agree, it was some pretty shoddy work. “I think you’re right. We find the gun, we find Dr. Morgan.”

“Time to go find us an antique,” Jo said, throwing the file back down on her desk. “Come on, let’s go pull that bullet from evidence. First thing in the morning we’re gonna hunt down some antique weapons dealers.”

\-----

“That’s odd,” Henry remarked absently as he flipped through the ballistics report.

“What is it?” Abe asked from the kitchen where he was preparing tea.

Henry had just gotten back with the report, and though it was near midnight, neither him nor Abe was able to sleep. After his run-in Detective Martinez he’d spent most of his time looking over his shoulder as he made his way back to Abe’s, and he hadn’t had a chance to look at it before now.

“This bullet, these figures. Says the gun is a Luger pistol, but….”

“Yeah? Did the gun not look like one?”

“I never saw the gun. The killer was already out the door by the time I arrived.”

He closed his eyes at the flash of a memory: the back of the man who killed Abigail, turning to find her bloody and weak on their bedroom floor. He shook his head. Now was not the time. He needed to find who did this.

Abe was looking at him with concern when he opened his eyes and looked up. He cleared his throat and continued as Abe came into the living room with two cups.

“A Luger pistol is the conclusion,” he continued, dragging his finger down the page as he scanned it, “but I still don’t— _oh_.”

“What?”

Henry’s finger had stopped on a handwritten scribble on the margins of the ballistics report, little more than an unofficial working note that had been unintentionally included when the original report had been scanned into the electronic system—not included on the official court submitted copy, which had been clean.

_Similar to the .30 Mauser Automatic._

The memory clicked into place. Neat and tidy bullets in a hip pouch, the wet slop of trench mud up to his shins, and a thin but deadly barrel at his side.

Henry leapt from his seat and strode towards Abe, coming beside him to show him the file.

“They identified it wrong! It’s not a Luger, it’s a Mauser. A Mauser C96, to be exact. Very popular at the turn of the century—the 20th Century, that is. In the hands of collectors now. An understandable error, perhaps, faced only with—”

“How the hell can you tell that from this?” Abe peered over his arm at the report.

“I carried a Mauser in World War I,” Henry said, examining the picture of the bullet closer. “This is standard ammunition for the gun type. Considered old fashioned by that time, but as a medic, I can’t say that I cared what kind of gun I had. A friend of mine was an enthusiast—they were very popular with British officers for a while—and gifted it to me before I left. I believe he was amused by the irony of fighting the Germans with their own weapons. Anyway, I was required to know the tool, and this information certainly fits. Very similar to the Luger, and after being fired, near identical. No wonder it was misidentified.”

“So they were looking for the wrong type of gun the whole time,” Abe said, arriving at the same conclusion. “You have gotta be kidding me. Oh, for—well let’s track this damned gun down on our own!”

Abe handed him his cup of tea and Henry accepted his with a flash of a smile of thanks after tucking the file under his arm. Abe settled on the chair, and Henry took up the seat next to him. He closed his eyes and inhaled the spiced steam of perfectly steeped tea. Oh, he had missed this. It was a small island of normalcy in the middle of this maelstrom.

“Would you be able to put the word out to any of your fellow antique dealers?” Henry asked after he had taken a sip of his tea.

“I can do that. Dennis might have some information that would help.”

Henry narrowed his eyes. Dennis didn’t specialize in weapons, unlike other colleagues of Abe’s.

“The Frenchman would probably be extremely helpful.”

“Oh, I don’t think we need to go see The Frenchman.” Abe said, waving a hand in dismissal of the idea. “I’m sure Dennis can get us the information. Or Steve down on 63rd. He’s got even more connections than I do, and that’s saying something.”

Henry simply stared back at him until Abe finally sighed and set down his cup.

“Fine. I’ll call her in the morning.”

“Thank you, Abraham.” Henry smiled into his tea cup as he took a sip. “Don’t worry, I’ll come along and protect you.”

Abe made a disgruntled snort and muttered something under his breath that Henry didn’t quite catch, and Henry chuckled.

\-----

The police details watching Abe’s house consisted of two very bored plain-clothes officers who were more interested in the bakery around the corner than watching their quarry. At their 9:00am coffee break, which was timed to coincide with the time a fresh batch of bagels came out of the oven, Henry snuck out of the apartment via the back entrance. Ten minutes later, Abe left in the car, and after driving around to make sure that the police weren’t following him, Abe swung around to their agreed meeting place and picked Henry up for the drive to the Frenchman’s.

She’d agreed to come in early to meet Abe, despite the fact he’d not given her anything more than a vague request for consulting her expertise, and Henry had laughed at the rare opportunity to see his son tongue-tied by a woman.

They made it to the Frenchman’s shop by ten, and Abe carefully scouted to make sure the coast was clear before Henry made to follow him out of the car. The bell to the shop door jingled merrily as Abe pushed through first.

“Abraham.” The Frenchman greeted warmly as she set a large and wickedly sharp looking curved sword back in its case. “And Henry,” she added as Henry came into view behind Abe, her tone rising in as much surprise as she was willing to express. “To what to do I owe the pleasure?”

“We’re here about the gun. The one from Henry’s trial.” Abe spoke the last sentence in a hushed tone despite the shop being empty of customers.

The Frenchman gave Henry an assessing look before turning her attention back to Abe.

"You want me to break the law for you?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

"When it comes to antique weapons, you're the best," Abe said, with that tone Henry only heard when Abe was laying on his thickest, heaviest compliments.

"We would really appreciate your help," Henry said, with a crooked smile. He knew that she wasn't as concerned with the legality of the situation as her question implied. The world of antique weapons dealing had never been a black and white place.

She looked at them both with a smile that said she knew what they were doing and it was exactly what she wanted.

“Flattery will get you everywhere, boys. What information do you have on the gun?”

“We have the ballistics report, and strong suspicion that it’s a Mauser C96 we’re looking for rather than a Luger pistol. Will that do?” Henry asked as he held up a folded piece of paper.

She took it from him, unfolded it and began to read.

“This does help,” she said, her gaze still on the paper in her hands. “I’ve never carried a Mauser, but if that is your gun, then there are probably only five or ten in the city. It’ll take me a day or two to check the details, and then I can get you a list.”

“Thank you so much. We owe you,” Abe said, and Henry nodded from behind him.

“Well, a cute guy like Henry? He wouldn’t last a day in prison. And as for owing me,” she smiled, slow and predatory, at Abe, “you can make it up to me. Dinner tonight?”

“Oh, uh, well, Henry’s going to need my help tonight. I’ll have to take a rain check.” Abe shifted his weight between his feet, his words stammered.

The Frenchman gave him a slow scan up and down look before she said, “I’ll hold you to that.”

\-----

“Okay, go ahead. Yeah, okay, got it. Thanks.”

The pencil scratched on the notepad by the phone as Abe scribbled down the information the Frenchman was giving him. He had the receiver clamped between the ear and his shoulder as he wrote.

After waiting a day, cooped up in the apartment with nothing to do but pace and fret, Henry was overeager to receive any news, and the Frenchman’s phone call had Henry hovering at Abe’s elbow before he finished saying hello. As soon as Abe finished writing Henry snatched the paper from the pad as Abe said his goodbyes and set the heavy phone receiver in the cradle. There was only one address written down.

“She said she traced eight that have been sold in town in the last decade. Two out of town, as in Florida and Utah out of town, five sold to people well-known for their antique weapons collections, and then this address, seven months ago.

“Was there a name?” Henry asked, absorbing the street address. Seven months. He’d been asking Abigail to marry him, excited and enthused about their future, so far from this current hell. “Do you know who lives at this address?”

“No, she said this was all she managed to get. And, that unless we want to find out that all her antiques are still perfectly serviceable weapons, nobody finds out this information came through her.”

Henry nodded, then folded the paper over on itself and stuffed it in his trouser pocket as he turned for the door. When Abe started to follow him, he stopped them both. He took Abe by the arms, earnest in his concern.

“I have to do this alone, Abe. If this is the person who killed her, I can’t have you at risk. Or, if it’s a dead end, I won’t have you implicated in a crime. Stay here. I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Henry, you can’t—” Abe sputtered, but his objection never fully materialized. Perhaps he understood that Henry needed to know Abe was safe as much as he needed an answer to Abigail’s death. Abe rolled his eyes. “Fine. Be careful, okay?”

“Abe,” Henry said, “he can’t hurt me.”

“No, he can’t _kill_ you. Hurting you? That’s different. Different, and doable.”

“I promise you, I’ll be careful.”

Abe grunted his dubious agreement and pulled Henry into a hug, squeezing tight. Henry wrapped his arms around his son and returned it whole-heartedly, until Abe released him. Abe ran his fingers through his thinning hair and then made a shooing gesture.

“Alright, go on, then. Go.”

\-----

Henry was tossed up between the risk of walking to his destination or trapping himself in a taxi. Neither was appealing should he be recognized, but in the end he chose speed and hailed a passing cab.

Twenty minutes later he climbed out and walked the last two blocks to the apartment building, staring up at it with some trepidation. Henry watched the front door for a time before a careless tenant, intent on typing something into his phone one-handed while shouldering out the door, let the door drop closed behind him without checking to see if it latched properly. It didn’t, and Henry slipped through into the building.

He took the stairs to the third floor and found apartment 306, hovering outside the nondescript door for a moment before knocking loudly and hurrying away to the stairwell. He watched through the crack in the door, but there was no response.

No one home.

He knew he wasn’t going to be able to break down any doors, so Henry went back outside and climbed the fire escape, finding the right window, and pretended to sit and smoke until he was fairly certain no one was observing him. He bundled his jacket around his arm and, with a swift jab, smashed the window. As quickly as he could he unlatched it and crawled inside, his feet crunching on the broken glass.

The entire apartment was neat and tidy, not a thing out of place. Aside from some beautiful Persian rugs covering the living room floor, all the furnishings in the living space had the new, lightweight modern lines of recent fabrications. Either it was someone who was obsessed with the latest trends, or had recently moved and had the money to purchase everything new.

Henry moved through the apartment looking for signs of life—pictures on the walls, mementos, anything that might indicate who lived here. There was nothing. It was eerily like the resident had left no personal mark on their space whatsoever. Until he checked the refrigerator and found fresh food and signs of leftover takeout, he wasn’t convinced anyone lived here.

He poked his head into the single bedroom. Again, neat and tidy. The bed was made with military precision. If it had been slept in, he couldn’t tell.

He checked the bedroom closet, looking for some hint as to who lived here. A man, by the looks of it, average height. Henry ran his hands over the tops of the hangers, parting the articles of clothing—all belonging to one person, judging by the size. Suit jackets and trousers, dress shirts, a few t-shirts and jeans. Beneath, three pairs of shoes. He fingered the material of one jacket. Expensive, though a casual cut that belied their quality. He turned to look over the rest of the room, and that was when he saw it.

The wall opposite the bed, where normally a dresser might sit, or a painting might adorn the wall, was covered in snapshots and scraps of paper. Henry frowned, moving towards the only sign of personality in the room. When he was close enough to see the subject of the photos, he staggered to a halt, eyes darting and taking it all in, dread growing with each one.

A picture of Henry, a candid shot from afar, taken on the street near the hospital. Next to it, an old photo from the 1980’s, when he’d worked in a clinic and they had a Christmas calendar made featuring their staff. He’d put up a fuss about it, but they’d insisted on including him because it had him holding a little girl with a broken arm, both of them smiling widely.

Beside that, a picture of Henry leaving the antiques store.

More and more photos of Henry from different times and places, with a heavy weight toward recent years. Along with the photos, scraps of newspaper articles, an arrest report, a hospital report, spanning decades, were all tacked together in a messy collage.

In amongst the shots of Henry were pictures of Abigail—always with Henry. Henry on her apartment steps saying goodnight. The two of them strolling on the street, dressed up for a night out.

Henry stepped closer to examine the photo tacked in the middle, above the rest—the most recent addition—and pulled it free, letting the tack fall to the ground.

Abraham and Henry, a block or so from the shop, in the midst of talking as they walked. With a chill Henry realized it was the same outfits they’d been wearing yesterday when they’d left to go see the Frenchman.

Henry staggered back. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed and covered his mouth, staring at what amounted to a shrine of his own life.

Whoever this was, they were _obsessed_. Obsessed with Henry, with his life. These pictures, these notes, stretched backward through time. They knew about his immortality.  This was never about Abigail, this was about _him_. She’d died because of him.

Was Abe next? How could he protect his son when he’d failed to protect Abigail? Henry sucked in a breath, trying to quell the sudden throbbing panic.

He stood and bolted through the apartment until he found a telephone. He dialed Abe’s number, hoping and praying that he would pick up, but cursed as Abe’s phone clicked over to voicemail. It could have been something as simple as he was downstairs and had left his phone upstairs, or it could have been something more sinister. It was clear that Henry’s stalker was watching the shop, and could well know that Henry was gone and Abe was vulnerable.

In a flash of last-ditch desperation, Henry dialed the operator. He made his directory inquiry, waiting to be put through to the only person he could think to call for help. Eventually he heard the click as he was connected.

\-----

"Detectives Martinez and Hanson," Jo said as they both flashed their badges at the shop owner.

They had spent the whole previous day tracking down antique dealers and weapons experts, with very little luck in terms of solid leads. Lots of shops only specialized in specifically American weapons, some were reluctant to speak to them without a warrant—which Jo was not going to even try to get, because Reece would go through the roof if she knew they were investigating a closed case—and then some were only filled with things like swords and daggers. Jo hadn’t thought that an old gun would be so difficult to find, but nobody that they had met with so far had been able to give them anything really useful. They only had one more name after this stop, and she was hoping that this antiques dealer was better than her competition.

The Frenchman, and Jo hadn't expected the woman standing in front of them with a name like that, paid very little attention to Jo, but spent several seconds looking speculatively at Hanson before answering.

"How can I help you, Detectives?"

"We're looking for a Luger pistol. Would you know who in the city might have one?"

The Frenchman ignored Jo’s question and instead held up the object that had been sitting on the counter in front of her for both of them—but really Hanson—to see. It was a pair of metal handcuffs, clearly older than the ones they both carried.

"Handcuffs all the way from Sing Sing. Are you familiar with antique restraining devices, Detective?"

Hanson cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders.

"Can't say that I am."

"Would you like to be?" She raised her eyebrows and set the handcuffs dangling off her finger swinging gently.

Hanson coughed.

As much as Jo enjoyed watching Hanson flounder, they needed those names.

"Luger pistol. Do you have a list of local owners?"

“I could ask some of my colleagues, but it might take a while.”

The Frenchman finally looked at Jo as she gathered the handcuffs in her hand. She didn’t break eye contact, but Jo could tell she was hiding something, and it wasn’t the same foot-dragging as they’d experienced with the other suspicious dealers. She opened her mouth to suggest they continue their conversation at the station when her phone rang.

She pulled the phone out of her pocket, but the screen displayed “Unknown Caller” and a number she didn’t recognize. She swiped the screen to accept the call and put it up to her ear with a slight frown.

“Detective Jo Martinez, Homicide.”

_“Detective Martinez, this is Henry Morgan.”_

Well, that was the last voice she’d expected to hear.


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Detective, there are pictures of Abraham, my friend. He’s in danger. You need to protect him.”_
> 
> _“Why are you telling me this?” she asked._
> 
> _“Because.…” Henry tried to sort out why, and it came down to a very surprising reason. “Because I think you care about the truth. Because I think you will do what’s right, even if it doesn’t fit the story that was built around Abigail’s murder, and my involvement. It would seem that I trust you, Detective.”_
> 
> _This time Martinez’ pause stretched for several seconds. Henry held his breath._
> 
> _“You’re putting a lot of faith in me, Henry. It’s my job to find you and arrest you. You know that.”_
> 
> _“I know. But your job is also to protect people. Abe is at risk. Please, protect him. He is an innocent in all this. I won’t have him hurt because of me.”_

_“Detective Jo Martinez, Homicide.”_

“Detective Martinez,” Henry rasped, and then he cleared his throat. “This is Henry Morgan.”

There was a stretch of silence, and then a sharp intake of breath.

_“For a man who wants to get away from the police, you and I sure talk to each other a lot.”_

Despite himself, Henry chuckled.

“Yes, it would seem so. This isn’t a social call, I’m afraid.”

_“Glad to hear it. You want to tell me where you are?”_

“I’m quite certain you’ll have the exact address soon enough once you trace this phone call,” Henry said, glancing around the sterile apartment, then towards the bedroom again. “I’ve found Abigail’s killer. I’m in his apartment.”

There was another pause before she spoke again.

_“What makes you think this person killed Abigail?”_

“Pictures. Surveillance photos. Whoever it was, he was after me. I think he killed her when trying to get to me. There are pictures of me, of her…” His voice failed him, and he struggled to regain his composure. “Detective, there are pictures of Abraham, my friend. He’s in danger. You need to protect him.”

_“Why are you telling me this?”_

“Because.…” Henry tried to sort out why, and it came down to a very surprising reason. “Because I think you care about the truth. Because I think you will do what’s right, even if it doesn’t fit the story that was built around Abigail’s murder, and my involvement. It would seem that I trust you, Detective.”

This time Martinez’ pause stretched for several seconds. Henry held his breath.

_“You’re putting a lot of faith in me, Henry. It’s my job to find you and arrest you. You know that.”_

“I know. But your job is also to protect people. Abe is at risk. Please, protect him. He is an innocent in all this. I won’t have him hurt because of me.”

Martinez sighed, and Henry’s fingers tightened on the phone as he listened.

_“I’ll see what I can do. But it will be a lot easier for Abe if you turn yourself in. You have to know that we think he’s helping you. He’ll go to prison if we find out you’ve been in contact with him.”_

“I haven’t,” Henry said quickly, his haste exposing the falsehood. He closed his eyes and dropped his head down, rubbing his forehead. That was the last thing he needed, to have brought this upon Abe on top of everything else.

When Henry opened his eyes, the white corner of an envelope caught his eye, trapped in the crack of the drawer under the telephone table. Henry pulled the drawer open, finding a neat stack of papers within. Personal items were thin here, so he laid them out on the table next to the phone, hoping they would give him something.

_“I know you’re tired, Henry. It’ll be easier for you if we end this now.”_

“I’m not giving up until I find this person.”

_“I thought you knew who it was,”_ she said. _“You told me you found them.”_

Henry flipped the envelope over, finding a rental company’s address and logo emblazoned on the front. He pinched the phone between his ear and shoulder, pulling the paperwork free as he spoke.

“I found where they live. As for who, I think I may have a name, I—”

Henry choked to a stop. A rental agreement.

Lessee: Lewis Farber.

_“Henry?”_

Lewis. His colleague. His friend.

_“Henry, you still there?”_

Henry barely heard the detective calling him, and it took him a good ten seconds to blink out of his frozen shock, the paperwork clenched in his hand.

“Protect Abe,” he said again.

_“Henry, tell me—”_

“I have to go.”

He heard the buzz of her voice continue to call for him as he set the phone down on the table, leaving the call open for them to trace. The paperwork slipped from his numb fingers and fluttered to the floor as he put his hands to his head, wondering what to do.

The police would come here—they would come and see this. They’d know it was Lewis, they’d be able to link him to the gun.

Was the gun here?

Henry tore through the apartment, tossing drawers and closets, rifling the furniture, looking beneath the carpet for anything resembling a hiding place. He gave himself five precious minutes to toss the place, but there was nothing. When he staggered upright from searching beneath the mattress and the box spring, Henry turned and saw the disturbing collage again.

Evidence of his immortality, all in one place. Evidence the police would find as soon as they came.

Henry scrabbled at the wall to tug down anything that predated his current life, searching and scanning to pull old photos and newspaper clippings, stuffing them into his jacket pockets with haste. He left anything from current day, letting them stand as testimony to the obsessive stalking, to the threat to Henry, Abigail, and Abraham.

He was running out of time, and he needed to leave before the police traced the call to this apartment. He gave the one wall a last scan and then fled, letting himself out through the front door. He left it open behind him, not caring about subtlety any longer.

Lewis would be at the hospital now. Henry had time to find him before the police caught up, if he was quick.

Lewis _knew._ He knew about Henry, about his immortality. How long had he known? And why had he killed Abigail, _why?_

Henry jogged over a block to the main street and hailed a cab, throwing himself into it and giving the address of the hospital.

He didn’t care if it was his last act as a free man, Henry was going to find Lewis Farber.

\-----

_Henry couldn’t stop whistling. He might as well be floating two inches above the ground for how light he felt. He powered through the emergency room shift with energy and zeal, and even four hours in he was still going strong._

_Any flagging enthusiasm he’d felt had been bolstered when he looked up and caught Abigail’s eye across the room. Carnage around them, stretchers being wheeled through the double doors from ambulances, everything from broken arms to gunshot wounds being treated around them—but she smiled, wide and radiant, and he was filled with such love for her that he felt he could continue for days if he had to. He turned back to his work and she to hers, him humming under his breath as he stitched up the cut across the young boy’s knee from where he’d fallen riding his bike._

_Even love couldn’t keep a man going indefinitely, however, and eventually Henry sought out the break room for coffee and five minutes off his feet._

_He nearly bumped into Lewis Farber, who was on his way out of the room. Henry jumped back, startled out of his thoughts on Abigail. He grinned widely and clapped Lewis on the shoulder._

_“Sorry there, Lewis. Head in the clouds.”_

_“Not what we want to hear from the emergency room staff,” Lewis said with a dry chuckle. He eyed Henry up and down, eyes narrowed. “You are in quite the good mood, aren’t you? What’s the occasion?”_

_Henry couldn’t be bothered to play it close to his chest, he was far too pleased with life._

_“I’m getting married.”_

_Those words—never in a thousand years did he think he’d say those words again. It was pure insanity, but he couldn’t imagine anything he’d rather be doing than this. He’d dropped to one knee in the middle of the art gallery where Abigail had somehow talked their way into a celebratory gala for a sixtieth anniversary of a gallery patron. The way she sparkled and shone that night, the way she’d teased him about being as old as some of the paintings on the walls—”You’re a work of art too, darling,” she’d said with a wink—he couldn’t help it. He knew he never wanted to spend another day without her, if he could be by her side. If she’d have him._

_She’d said yes before he could finish asking the question. God help him, she’d said yes._

_Even when in the next breath panic and a semblance of logic had hit him enough to stutter through all the problems, all the terrible challenges of trying to navigate life with his curse hanging over them, she’d pulled him in and stoppered his babbling with a kiss._

_“We’ll figure it out one day at a time,” she’d said._

_Only a month living with his secret, and already she was more at ease with it than he himself was. She was truly incredible._

_Lewis cleared his throat, and Henry shook himself with a self-deprecating laugh._

_“Sorry, what was that?”_

_“I assume Abigail is the lucky lady in question?”_

_“Yes, yes she is,” Henry affirmed._

_Lewis cocked his head curiously, almost as though he would say something, but nothing came out. He was silent long enough that Henry was prompted to ask._

_“What is it?”_

_Lewis waved a hand to dismiss his concern._

_“Sorry, nothing. It’s just—well, you’ve always struck me as such a very private person, Henry.”_

_Henry chuckled and shifted so he could lean a shoulder against the wall as they chatted._

_“Is that your professional opinion?”_

_“Yes, well, once a psychiatrist, always a psychiatrist, I suppose.” Lewis said with a smile that quickly faded despite what looked like an effort to hold onto it. “I mean no offense, of course. But it is a large step, welcoming someone into your life.”_

_Henry folded his arms, regarding Lewis with some curiosity, and then a bit of sheepish embarrassment. They’d chatted over the two years they’d known each other since Lewis had joined the hospital staff after following his wife’s job to America. Both he and Henry had shared the odd story here and there, and Lewis had reached out to him on occasion as a friend. Perhaps Henry hadn’t realized how much the man cared, had paid attention._

_Henry thought himself circumspect, but Lewis was an observant, intelligent man. Henry had always respected that about him. Now here he was prying the truth from between the lines of Henry’s stories—the long, lonely years, the isolation. Private, he said, but ’secretive to the point of paranoid’ was the more likely label in Lewis’ mind._

_Henry wasn’t sure if he was touched or troubled by how well Lewis had read him. Henry had been sitting on the shrink’s couch all this time, chatting with a man unable to turn his job off even when making small talk with a friend._

_“It is a big step,” he agreed, nodding. “But Abigail is….” He paused, searching for a way to express himself in a way that he could share. “She understands me better than I think anyone ever has. I think if she can accept me with my, ah—my flaws, then I am a lucky man. Luckier than I ever thought I could be.”_

_Henry looked up to find Lewis regarding him with a blank expression, but he then blinked rapidly and gave him a wide smile._

_“Yes. I think I understand,” he said. “We all seek out those who can understand us. Sometimes it surprises us who those people turn out to be. Well, congratulations to you. A good woman is hard to find.”_

_Henry straightened and nodded._

_“Thank you, Lewis.”_

_“Nothing like having someone to grow old with, eh Henry?”_

_With that handful of words Henry’s good mood deflated like a burst balloon, the needle of reality thrust into his delightful dream. The omnipresent threat hanging over them—time dragging them apart as Abigail aged and he didn’t. Henry tried to chase it away, but it was always lurking behind his other thoughts, and always would be. He would have to learn to live with it._

_Before Henry could muster a reply Lewis walked on, head down as he hurried down the corridor back to work._

\-----

Hanson was already on his cell phone talking to the precinct requesting a trace on the call when Jo lowered the phone from her ear. Henry hadn’t responded for a minute now, and it didn’t look like he would. She looked at the display again, at _unknown caller_ emblazoned across the screen. He’d left the call connected for them to trace—he wanted them to come and find the apartment. She doubted he’d wait around for them to find him as well.

Jo muted the call and left it open while Hanson stepped away, finger in his free ear as he muttered quietly.

The Frenchman was standing behind the glass display counter with her hands primly folded over each other on top of her open customer registry. Jo approached her, eyebrow raised. Instead of looking indifferent or even idly curious, she was still and attentive, having listened silently to Jo’s half of the call.

It was more than the pursuit of salacious gossip. If Jo had to guess, she’d say the Frenchman looked nervous.

“Would you like to add anything?”

The Frenchman closed her register and picked it up, holding it in front of her chest like a shield. Other than that she gave nothing away.

“I suspect you have everything you need already,” she said. “I’m sure at this point my involvement is superfluous, wouldn’t you agree? If you’ll excuse me, I have some recent acquisitions that need assessment.”

The Frenchman stooped and picked up a box from the floor. She placed it heavily on the counter with a clunk and began pulling out an assortment of blades and curved, spiky things that looked deadly but Jo couldn’t name, sending a less than subtle message. She raised an eyebrow at the Frenchman as she pulled out a soft cloth and began polishing them, but said nothing.

Jo left her to it and paced back to Hanson, listening and waiting out the interminable minutes it took to trace the call. Hanson finally hung up the phone and brandished the pen and a business card with an address scrawled on the back.

“Got the address. They’ve got a car on the way,” he said.

“Great.” Jo pulled the phone from her pocket and disconnected the call. “I’m going over there.”

“You? Just you?”

“Yep.”

Jo gestured for them to return to the Frenchman, who was slowly polishing a curved scimitar and watching them.

“So,” Jo said loudly, including her in the conversation. “We have the address. What we need is a weapon. The one that killed Abigail Morgan.”

“Oh, is that what you’re after,” the Frenchman said with unconvincing tone of innocent observation.

Jo rolled her eyes and turned to go, but before she took a step the Frenchman spoke up again.

“I might have some speculation on that.”

Jo turned back to her, but the Frenchman was still studiously polishing the metal at a slow, consistent pace. When Jo raised an eyebrow to prompt her, she put it down on the glass countertop.

“I believe your ballistics team sent you in the wrong direction. A Mauser C96 is a more likely murder weapon.”

“Hm, I see,” Jo said, taking that in. She nodded to her partner. “Hanson, see what you can get from her, I’m going to head to the apartment.”

Hanson eyed the Frenchman, then back to Jo. He had a desperate look in her eye.

“I’m not sure if—”

“I’ll take good care of him, Detective,” the Frenchman said, staring Hanson down. “Never let it be said that I don’t work well with the police.”

Hanson swallowed heavily.

“Right, yeah,” he said.

Jo turned to go, but the Frenchman called to her again. Jo glanced over her shoulder at her, at the serious expression.

“Detective. He’s innocent,” the Frenchman said.

“He was convicted of the crime,” she responded.

That defense was already losing strength in her mind, and she felt less like this was a case of recapturing their killer so much as finding the real one.

“The law can make mistakes. But the law can also fix them.”

Jo had no answer to that, and so left Hanson behind to contend with the woman. She had to get to that apartment and see what the hell was going on.

\-----

By the time she arrived at the address, the squad car was already there and the officers had secured the building. As she’d suspected, no trace of Morgan, other than what he’d left behind.

“You’re going to want to see this,” Higgs, one of the uniformed police officers, said. She beckoned for Jo to follow her into the bedroom.

Jo followed her in and she hissed in a breath when she saw the wall covered in photographs, all haphazardly pinned to the wall in jagged patches. Henry and Abigail, together. Henry alone. Henry and the old guy, Abe. So many pictures.

Jo stood in front of the wall for a moment taking it all in, looking at each of the photos in turn.

She zeroed in on one photo different from the rest—Henry, clean-shaven. It was taken on the street, Henry speaking to Abe. Clean-shaven meant that this was taken recently, in the few days since Henry’s escape.

He _had_ been in contact with Abe, and his stalker knew it as well.

Jo took a step back from the wall and held up her phone, flipping on the camera and snapping a shot of the wall.

“Detective Martinez, we’ve got a name.”

Higgs came into the room clutching a sheaf of papers and Jo took it from her.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Jo said under her breath.

Dr. Lewis Farber, Henry Morgan’s colleague. Farber, who’d smugly said that Henry was too smart for them.

Jo looked at the snapshot on her phone in her other hand, then tucked the papers under her arm.

“Thanks. Look, I need you to call in for a car to swing round to Stanton and Suffolk—a place called Abe’s Antiques. We need to get the owner, Abe Morgan, into protective custody.”

Higgs nodded and pulled her cell from her pocket to make the call while Jo dialed Hanson.

_“Yo, that was quick,”_ Hanson said as he answered. _“I got Ms. The Frenchman’s statement—though you owe me for leaving me with her, I thought she was going to eat me. What did you find?”_

“Not Morgan. But I think I might know who Abigail’s killer is.”

_“What?”_

“Get to the hospital. I’ll meet you there. We need to have a talk with Dr. Lewis Farber.”

_“Farber? Jo, what the hell is going on?”_

“I don’t know. But Mike, if you get there first—be careful. I think Farber might be dangerous.”

_“And what about Morgan?”_

“I have a feeling we’ll find him there.”


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Had he known Henry was closing on him? If Henry had come to the hospital asking for his help, then he must not have had any suspicions that Farber was Abigail’s killer._
> 
> _Jo shook herself. When had she begun thinking of Farber as the guilty party, and Henry as innocent?_
> 
> _Was it so crazy, though? Shoddy evidence, a court case pushed through by a judge and jury eager to show decisive, swift justice in a high-profile case, and now a secret stalker. All of which was just more to add to the real truth at the heart of her belief—she’d looked Henry in the eye. She’d listened to him speak._
> 
> _Not a single part of her believed he was capable of murder._

Henry arrived at the hospital and handed a fistful of cash to the cabbie, not bothering to count out bills. He slammed the door and strode for the emergency room entrance. The chaos of the ER would be sufficient to cover his entry.

However, Henry stopped when the flash of a blue NYPD uniform met him through the doors of the emergency room. He took a detour close to the cluster of ambulances parked in the circular loading zone outside the doors. One was busy disgorging its patient, two EMTs running beside the stretcher to get the man, clearly a car accident victim in neck brace, bloodied and strapped down, into the hospital. Using the ambulance as a blind, Henry unzipped his jacket and took the hem of his t-shirt, ripping a section off. He held it to his forehead as though covering a head wound and then hunched over, coming around to stagger towards the entrance.

He shuffled through the doors behind the EMTs, moved aside as he was jostled by another team who was exiting to return to their ambulance, and sidled off towards the crowded waiting room.

It was packed, as always. The sounds of distress from the waiting injured were a constant hum. One man, his arm broken, was screaming as two nurses tried to inject a painkiller into him. Amongst the crowd, four NYPD officers were scattered, either dealing with gunshot wound victims—their own, more often than not—or called in to handle the more violent patients. The ER was always barely contained insanity.

The chaos worked to Henry’s advantage. He kept his head down, the cloth obscuring his face, and he edged his way slowly through the crowd. He slipped past into the corridor beyond that led to the rest of the hospital and away from the police.

This hospital contained the largest concentration of people who knew Henry’s face other than the NYPD precinct, and so Henry very carefully kept his face averted from any passing staff. He made it past radiology, past the doors towards surgery, and to the psychiatric wing.

His thoughts were a confused, soupy mess. Lewis had killed Abigail. He was stalking Henry. He was likely after Abe. Lewis knew Henry was immortal, that much was obvious, but how had he found out? Why had he killed Abigail?

Lewis’ office was halfway down the corridor past the psychiatry department’s check-in desk, but unfortunately he was going to have to go straight past the desk and the receptionist stationed there to get to it, and he didn’t care, he’d walk right in and demand the truth.

“Detective Hanson, NYPD Homicide. I’m looking for Dr. Lewis Farber.”

Henry heard the words as he cleared the corner of the hallway that led into the psychiatry waiting area, and he lurched to a halt. At the desk, presenting his badge to the receptionist seated behind it, was the same dark-haired detective that had pursued him alongside Detective Martinez as he fled the precinct.

Neither immediately noticed him and so Henry made a slow turn and retreated. Once out of sight, he pressed his back to the corridor wall.

“Damn, damn, _damn_ ,” he hissed, leaning his head against the wall. He closed his eyes and swallowed down his hammering heart.

“Dr. Farber isn’t here today,” he heard the receptionist say.

“Do you know where I’d find him? We need to speak with him,” said Hanson.

“I’m not sure. He was supposed to be in, but didn’t show up this morning. We’ve tried to get in touch, but no luck. Is everything okay? Has he been in an accident?”

Henry held his breath as he listened, straining to hear the response, but an abrupt gasp near him made him jump. His eyes flew open and he tensed.

“Oh my god!”

Across the corridor, mid-stride with a box of latex gloves in hand, was Lucas Wahl, the enthusiastic lab technician from the hospital blood work laboratory. His mouth was hanging wide open like a broken screen door as he gaped at Henry. He broke from his paralysis and came closer, a smile breaking through the shock.

“Dr. Mor—”

In a flash, Henry shoved off the wall and slapped a hand over Lucas’ mouth, silencing the rest of his name into a muffled grunt.

“Shush!” Henry whispered, looking frantically over his shoulder towards the psychiatric waiting area where the detective was still speaking with the receptionist. “Lucas, please, don’t—”

“Okay, you hear from him, let me know, thanks,” said Hanson. 

The detective was done and headed this way. Henry paled, and met Lucas’ wide eyes.

Lucas grabbed Henry’s wrist and tugged his hand from his mouth. His grin was gone. He pulled at Henry’s arm and dragged him along after him, and they hurried down the corridor back towards the ER. Henry balked after a few steps, intent on sprinting away before Hanson caught sight of him, but Lucas was fishing the retractable swipe card from his waist. He slashed the card through the reader on the nearest door and entered a code. The door lock disengaged and Lucas opened the door to reveal a darkened patient exam room.

“Come on,” he beckoned urgently, his voice a barely-heard whisper. “In here.”

Henry paused, uncertain, but behind him were footsteps, and so Henry dove into the room past Lucas. Lucas followed him in and the door swung shut behind them, throwing the room into pitch blackness.

A few seconds later, he could hear the detective’s voice in the corridor outside.

“—put a BOLO out on a Dr. Lewis Farber. L-e-w-i….”

Hanson’s voice faded as he walked on past the exam room. Henry pressed his ear to the door, and after ten seconds with no further indication that the detective had spotted him entering the room, Henry slumped in relief.

“Can I talk now?” Lucas whispered.

Henry had very nearly forgotten Lucas was there. Henry groped for the light switch and found it, firing up the fluorescent lighting. They both squinted at each other, and Henry floundered for something to say.

“Thank you,” he finally said. “Thank you for doing that.”

“No problem.” Lucas fiddled with the box in his hands, then chucked it aside onto the exam table. “I never thought you killed her, you know. Anyone who saw you two—no, you’d never. And you’re a good man, I always knew that. You treated me with respect, even when the other doctors gave me a hard time.”

Henry licked his lips, taken aback by Lucas’ sudden and sincere pronouncement. He’d never thought himself particularly kind to the flippant young man, whose vocabulary and topics of conversation were fully half based in popular culture and thus things Henry didn’t understand. But Lucas was good at his job; fast, attentive, and helpful, and Henry had appreciated that. His emotional outburst was touching.

“Thank you, Lucas.”

Lucas leaned against the exam table.

“So, what’s the deal? How come you’re here?”

“It’s complicated. Quite honestly, I don’t want you put at risk. The less you know, the better.”

“Oh.” Lucas looked disappointed, but then rallied. “What can I do to help?” Henry was about to object, to say he’d done more than enough, but Lucas held up his hands with a cry of excitement. “Oh! I know. Give me a minute.”

Without warning, Lucas dashed for the door and slipped out. He was gone.

Henry, stupefied, glanced around the room. What was he supposed to do? He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, deciding to give Lucas the minute he’d asked for.

He needed to catch up with the spinning series of events. If the detective was here already, that meant they’d seen Lewis’ apartment, and that they were at the very least willing to treat him as a suspect, if not fully buy the truth that he was Abigail’s murderer.

However, Henry needed to get to him first. Lewis knew Henry was immortal, and who knew what he’d say to the police if he were cornered? Henry needed to move, needed to think of somewhere he could search for Lewis.

Two minutes, then three passed, and Henry was about to give up on Lucas and leave the exam room when the door burst open and Lucas bustled back in. He was bearing a wadded up ball of green, which he thrust at Henry.

“Here you go,” he said with a cocky, pleased expression.

It was a surgical gown and mask, as though Henry were scrubbed up and headed for surgery. He grinned.

“Lucas, you’re brilliant.”

“Thanks, Doc.” Lucas glowed from Henry’s praise.

Henry slipped into the gown and fixed on the cap and mask, and when he was ready Lucas scouted the corridor and then lead him out.

They walked through the hospital in silence to one of the lesser used back exits that led to a courtyard and then a block over to the street beyond. At the exit, Henry stripped off the outfit and handed it back to Lucas. He offered Lucas his hand, and he took it with a solemn shake.

“Thank you, Lucas.”

“No problem. Good luck.”

Henry squeezed Lucas’ hand and then turned to leave the hospital.

Henry squinted as he exited into the slanted afternoon sunshine. He honestly didn’t know where to go now. Back to Lewis’ apartment? Observe it in the chances that Lewis would reappear there, even though the police were likely going to be doing the same? Stay near the hospital to see if he turned up for work?

Henry kept his eyes scanning for any sign of police or anyone else. Ahead of him, another man was walking the courtyard towards Henry, his hat brim pulled low, and Henry ducked his head to avoid his face being seen as they crossed paths.

However, before they passed each other, the man shifted his trajectory such that he was directly in Henry’s way.

“Hello, Henry.”

Henry looked up and directly into the blank, cold face of Lewis Farber.

\-----

Jo threw on the lights and sirens for the trip across town, and left the cruiser parked in the loading zone in front of the hospital. She stopped at the circular information desk smack in the middle of the open foyer, and the pleasant, hunched old man behind the desk with bright red vest labeled “volunteer” pointed her in the right direction, after a long and winding prelude to the simple directions she needed. She threw a thank you over her shoulder as she dashed off.

Hanson intercepted her at one of the hallway intersections as she made her way towards the psychiatry department, both of them nearly running into each other as Jo charged around the corner.

“Hey! I was just about to call you,” Hanson said. “Farber’s not here. Didn’t turn up for work today.”

“Damn it. Anyone here know where he went?”

“He was supposed to be here, but didn’t show. Maybe he had some idea that this was coming. What did you find at the apartment?”

“I think he was stalking Henry and Abigail, and possibly Abe as well.”

Jo pulled her phone from her pocket and called up the snapshots of the photo wall at Farber’s apartment. Hanson whistled low and long, zooming in on various parts to examine the different pictures Farber had taken.

“Wow, that is full on creepshow. Do you think he has it out for all three of them?”

“I don’t know—we need to find him. Let’s see if we can get into his office, maybe we can see if there’s any clue where he might have gone.”

They made their way to reception. It was a different young woman behind the desk than the last time Jo had been here to interview Dr. Farber. Shawna, according to her desk name plate, was just finishing up a phone call. Recognizing Hanson, she gave him a little wave and mouthed _“just a sec.”_

“Yes—yes, if I hear anything I’ll let you know,” she said into the phone. “Thanks, Mrs. Farber.”

“Mrs. Farber?” Jo said quietly to Hanson.

The apartment Jo had been in was definitely single-occupancy, and certainly there was no sign of kids. It barely looked lived in at all. Then again, if Farber was stalking people on the side, he’d have needed a spot to get away and run his little operation. Hard to keep secrets like that when you’ve got kids running around poking into everything.

Hanson immediately leaned across the desk and beckoned to Shawna to hand over the phone receiver, who handed it over.

“Yeah, hi, Mrs. Farber. This is Mike Hanson, I’m a detective with the NYPD. We’re trying to locate your husband.”

Jo gestured for Shawna to come with her from the desk, and she joined her while Hanson talked on the phone.

“I thought I’d give her a call just to see if she’d heard from Dr. Farber,” Shawna said, clicking heavily lacquered nails against each other as she wrung her hands. “She hasn’t. She said she hasn’t seen him since yesterday. I hope that’s okay that I called her.”

Shawna’s face was crumpled up with the over-exaggerated sense of tragedy and grief affected by those who were more interested in the drama than in the actual person. 

“It’s fine,” Jo said. “In the meantime, I was hoping to get into Dr. Farber’s office, take a look and see if there’s any clues as to where he might have gone. Think you can help me?”

“Yeah, of course,” she said. Shawna led her down the hall and used a keycard to swipe open the lock on the office door. Jo gave her a quick thanks and went inside.

“Thanks, I’ll call if I need anything,” Jo said, giving Shawna the heavy hint to head back to reception. She took it, and soon Jo was left alone to examine the space.

The office was simple and tidy, with the same nearly clinical, unlived-in feel as the apartment. A few pictures dotted the top of a filing cabinet and a shelf—a blond woman, presumably Mrs. Farber, with two young girls, posed in studio photography style. She hadn’t noticed it when she’d first come into the office. On the desk, a paper calendar spread out before the leather rolling office chair. Jo flipped through it, finding only dotted appointments for those who were presumably patients. There were upcoming appointments as well, so if this disappearance was planned it was covered well, or it was an abrupt and surprise decision.

“Hey, I’ve got Farber’s home address—the real one, this time. His wife is going to meet me there, so I’m going to go see what I can find.”

Hanson was leaning in the office door, and he waved his notebook with his chicken-scratch scrawl all over it.

“Okay, sounds good. Let me know if you find anything. I’m going to go through the rest of the office, then ask around to some of the others staff he works with, see if anyone knows anything.”

Hanson left and Jo started going over the shelves behind the desk looking for anything—a scrap of paper, miscellaneous notes—but nothing was out of place. Textbooks mostly, a few notebooks, but nothing that would give any hint where Farber had gone.

Had he known Henry was closing on him? If Henry had come to the hospital asking for his help, then he must not have had any suspicions that Farber was Abigail’s killer.

Jo shook herself. When had she begun thinking of Farber as the guilty party, and Henry as innocent?

Was it so crazy, though? Shoddy evidence, a court case pushed through by a judge and jury eager to show decisive, swift justice in a high-profile case, and now a secret stalker. All of which was just more to add to the real truth at the heart of her belief—she’d looked Henry in the eye. She’d listened to him speak.

Not a single part of her believed he was capable of murder.

Jo turned to the window and stared out into the late afternoon sunshine, trying to soak up a bit of energy from the fading rays. She was exhausted, not just by the day of chasing leads, but an entire week of this insane manhunt. Every bit of the way she’d been one step behind, Henry Morgan just that little bit out of her reach.

The main floor became the second floor on the back side of the hospital, and Farber’s office overlooked a courtyard with pathways leading off to loading docks and various administrative buildings nearby. Two men in the center of the courtyard caught her eye as they turned and began to walk. Something about the stance of one made her look again, squinting against the golden rays of sun to see properly.

One looked up enough for her to spot his face. It was Henry.

Behind him, a hand suggestively tucked into one jacket pocket, was Lewis Farber. Henry paused and looked back at Farber, who waved his hand and said something, and Henry reluctantly continued walking.

Farber had a gun.

Jo broke from her position at the window and ran from the office. She skidded to a halt at reception, where Shawna was tucked up at her desk texting energetically on her cell, probably gossiping about the workplace drama. Shawna looked up with wide eyes when Jo spun into sight.

“How do I get out into the back side of the building? The courtyard?”

“Down the hall to your right, take the stairs down, then go straight,” Shawna said quickly. “But what—”

Jo didn’t wait to hear the rest of the question, and sprinted down the hall. She was not going to be left behind this time.


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Enough games. Why are you doing this?” Henry demanded. “Tell me now!”_
> 
> _“You know Henry, for an immortal, you have very little patience.”_
> 
> _Henry paled at the word 'immortal' coming so casually from Adam’s lips. He knew Adam had to know, Henry’s pockets were lined with photographic evidence that Adam had collected, and yet hearing it stated so baldly was staggering._
> 
> _Adam noticed his reaction and smiled slightly, his lips thin and bloodless._
> 
> _"I'm doing this for you, Henry. For us."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the penultimate chapter! Next week the last chapter and epilogue will be posted together.

“Hello, Henry.”

Lewis stood in front of him, but it wasn’t the coworker and friend that he’d worked with for months. This was Abigail’s killer. That knowledge, along with the cold expression and the flat, American accent, made him seem like a stranger, an enemy.

He held a gun, calmly pointed at Henry. They both knew it wouldn’t kill him, but the courtyard was open enough that they would likely be spotted.

"Lewis," Henry responded, grinding out the name, his voice shaking with his fury. His hands were clenched in fists at his side, and while he’d never been one to prefer fight to flight, he was incredibly tempted at this moment.

"Not Lewis, actually. You can call me Adam," he said, looking vaguely apologetic. "I'm sorry for the subterfuge, but then you're familiar with hiding behind a façade, aren't you, Henry?"

"Why are you doing this?"

“I would love to answer your questions, and I’m sure you have many of them, but would you mind if we took this conversation someplace a little more private? I noticed we have some police company. I would prefer to not be interrupted.”

Henry knew he had little choice. If Lewis—no, _Adam_ —chose to shoot him here, there would be too much chance of his death being witnessed, and he didn’t need to take that risk again.

They walked to the loading docks behind the hospital, Adam following at Henry’s back. It was where the hospital's supplies were delivered, and the walls of this part of the hospital were grimier than the rest, the ground littered with garbage. The trailers of several semi trucks stationed at the loading ports gave some privacy, and while Henry could hear loud machinery from the other end of the docks, there was very little foot traffic and they wouldn’t be seen. Adam guided Henry behind the truck trailer on the end and they were alone.

Adam was dispassionate as he gazed at Henry, though intent and focused, his hand holding the gun aimed at Henry’s heart unwavering.

“Enough games. Why are you doing this?” Henry demanded. “Tell me now!”

“You know Henry, for an immortal, you have very little patience.”

Henry paled at the word _immortal_ coming so casually from Adam’s lips. He knew Adam had to know, Henry’s pockets were lined with photographic evidence that Adam had collected, and yet hearing it stated so baldly was staggering.

Adam noticed his reaction and smiled slightly, his lips thin and bloodless.

"I'm doing this for you, Henry. For us."

"For us? What—what are you talking about?" Henry managed to force the words through his constricted throat.

“Despite your constant vague references to your immortality, mortals rarely see what's in front of them if it doesn't fit into their simple understanding of life."

He wanted to object, but he knew it was true. After centuries, he’d come to see where the line of what he could get away with sat, and for his own sanity and entertainment he let certain things slip. No one ever did more than shy away from his oddity, which was all the better for him. Why would anyone leap to the conclusion he was immortal?

“Your knowledge of history is impeccable, Henry. Almost like you were there. Your intimate knowledge of death so very, very personal. I did some looking, and you have an impressive arrest record for indecent exposure. The more we talked, the more I wondered, and so I decided to test my theory, not thinking you would do more than bleed out and die. Imagine my surprise when I knocked on your door the next day and there you were.”

\-----

_The jangling ring of the doorbell from the shop below took Henry by surprise, but not so much as the sight of Lewis Farber standing there when he made his way downstairs. Henry hurried across the shop to open the door._

_“Lewis, a pleasure to see you. Would you like to come in?”_

_Lewis stared at him, unblinking, hands clasped behind his back. Henry frowned at the lack of response._

_“You called in sick,” Lewis said finally. “I came to see if all was well.”_

_“Oh. Er, yes,” he said. Given the events of the night before, and the emotional roller coaster that was his violent death and then Abigail’s discovery, he hadn’t felt up to tackling a regular day. Both he and Abigail had called in sick to take some time. “Bit of a sleepless night, decided to spare the hospital my state today.”_

_Lewis took a step towards him and looked as though he would speak, but behind him came Abigail’s voice._

_“Henry, is Abe_ — _oh, hello, Dr. Farber.”_

_Abigail appeared in the doorway and Lewis stopped. His gaze slid past Henry to focus on her and Henry turned. Abigail was in pajama pants, her hair in a messy ponytail. Neither of them had done more today than lounge in bed talking, looking at old photographs and mementos, and Abe had cleared out to give them space. Likely she’d thought Abe was back, and come down to see what was keeping Henry lingering in the shop._

_Henry took Lewis’ silence for embarrassment at having caught his coworkers in a private moment. He was a little embarrassed himself, but the radiant glow of Abigail’s acceptance still warmed him whenever he looked at her, and he knew a foolish grin was on his face when he looked back to Lewis._

_“Well, perhaps more of a personal day,” Henry confessed, and he winked at Lewis. “Don’t let on at work, eh?”_

_Lewis smiled pleasantly._

_“Of course not,” he said._

_“Would you like to come in for coffee?” Abigail said, coming to Henry’s side, automatically sliding an arm into Henry’s._

_“No, I think I’ll be getting on,” Lewis said, and he touched the brim of his cap. He scanned Henry over once more. “Glad you’re surviving, Henry. See you at work.”_

_Lewis turned and left, and Henry closed the door behind him, giving his retreating back one last curious look._

_“That was odd,” Henry said to Abigail._

_“Not really,” she said. “You’re a friend and he’s checking up on you. That’s not so strange, is it?”_

_“First you, then a friend?” Henry said, and he turned to pull Abigail into his arms. “I assure you, strange is the mildest term I can think of.”_

_“Not bad, I hope.” She smiled at him, with only the smallest hint of concern. They were still on new and tentative ground._

_“Not bad at all,” he said, and leaned down to kiss her._

_All thoughts of the world outside faded away into Abigail’s kiss._

\-----

“You _stabbed_ me? But how—why would you think—”

Adam gave Henry a look of condescending pity, as if speaking to a child.

"Did you think I just figured it out? I'm like you. We share the same curse, the same affliction."

Everything came to a standstill, the world fading away until it was only the two of them, isolated, alone in this bubble. Henry shook his head silently, trying to parse his meaning, and finding only one. Adam was immortal too?

“How?” was all that came out, as his brain struggled to process. 

“A stab wound two thousand years ago.” Adam’s voice was slow and measured, as if he were talking about the weather and not his first death. “I’m just as unclear on the actual science of it as I’m sure you are, Henry. The important thing is that I’m still here. And so are you.”

“How can you not know? After two thousand years?” Henry knew it wouldn’t be an easy answer to find, but he’d imagined he would have figured it out before he started tracking his life in millennia.

“Well, science has some catching up to do. They only just figured out germs, we can’t be expecting them to have gotten to immortality just yet.” The condescension was back as if Adam was speaking about a group of school children and not all of humanity.

How could he not care? That question—the why and how of his immortality—was the one question that drove him forward, consumed much of his energy and Adam acted like it was a minor detail.

Henry pushed the thought back. That wasn’t why he was here. This man had killed Abigail and for that he would pay dearly.

“That still doesn’t answer my question,” Henry said, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t alone in his curse. He wished he was if this was to be his company for eternity. “Why did you kill her?”

"I was looking for more information. I hadn’t expected her to be home. Always in the way, that was Abigail’s problem. We could have had this conversation much earlier if not for her. What was the point of her, Henry? Do you think someone whose life is so fleeting could really fill some void? I did you a favor."

"A favor? You killed my wife! You framed me for her murder!"

"That was regrettable and not part of my intentions. But I got you out. I told you I would help you, Henry. That wasn't a lie." Adam shook his head and continued before Henry could say anything. “Who did you think caused the explosion that allowed for your escape?”

Everything. Everything that had happened had been Adam. Henry had been dancing to Adam’s puppet strings for months, and he hadn’t known. Adam kept speaking, not pausing long enough for Henry to formulate a response.

“You’re still a child, Henry. You pretend, you make-believe. You cling to living a normal life,” Adam said, the last part spat out in disgust. “As if a wife and children and a white picket fence could compare to all of history. We could be gods, and you’re willing to settle for something so small. It’s pointless.”

Henry remained silent, unsure of what to say to that, his fury all-consuming now.

“Do you think they understand?” Adam pressed as he got no response. “Just how important you are? How important _we_ are?There’s nothing new in this world, Henry. I have lived for two thousand years, and every day is the same, every person the same, every little drama played out has been done a million times before. Nothing new until me, and you. _They_ can’t comprehend the breadth and scope of the world as we see it. They’re _nothing_. Even you don’t really know, yet, but I understand. Someday, you will too. I have so much to tell you, Henry.”

Henry could feel his face contort in disgust, feel the tightness in his eyes that signaled tears. This was why Abigail had died? Why she had been attacked in their home? He saw red, the same red of her blood as she died from her gunshot wound on their bedroom floor.

“We are not better than them, Lew—” he caught himself before finishing the alias and continued. “Why did Abigail have to die?”

“You’re not getting it, Henry,” Adam said, his voice rising with his own anger and frustration, the calm condescension from before all but gone. “She doesn’t matter.”

“You have a family too. I met your wife at the Christmas party. You showed me pictures of your children.”

“They were the means to an end,” Adam said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You’re far too sentimental, Henry.”

“Do they know about you? Or were you playing a part with them too?” Henry asked, the feeling of disgust rising in his throat. Mrs. Farber had seemed like a lovely woman—intelligent and capable, a good match for his friend. Lewis had bragged about his two girls and how they were getting such high marks in school—the picture of a proud father. Henry couldn’t imagine doing something so callous to Abigail or Abe. Even Nora hadn’t deserved that.

“Families come and go. They serve their purpose, and then I move on. It’s simple—not the complicated mire you trap yourself in, Henry. I needed them for a time. Marriage is the simplest route through immigration red tape, and I had a yen to see America again. A few years of my time, then done.”

“How can you be so cold?” Henry asked, horrified.

“Two thousand years will do that to a man, Henry. You’re young, but you’ll come to see that I’m right.” Adam shook his head, almost fondly, and moved two steps closer. “I used to be like you, you know. In the beginning. So sure of what was good and right. After a while, you see that there is no right and wrong. Not for men like us. I can show you. Letting go of that small minded, _mortal_ morality opens up so many opportunities. Come with me.”

Henry was frozen. This couldn’t be the kind of man he would become. He wouldn’t let that happen.

“I will never be like you,” Henry snarled, finally moving forward, but stopping short as he remembered the gun in Adam’s hand. It wouldn’t help him to die just now.

“That’s a pity.” Adam drawled the words, but Henry could see the tightness, the anger behind his eyes.

“How could you think I’d ever do anything with you? You _murdered_ Abigail. You didn’t have to kill her! She’d done nothing!”

“You’re right. I didn’t have to kill her, but I did. She was collateral damage, Henry. In time, you’ll understand. I know you don’t feel this way now, but one day, you’ll even thank me for this.”

“I am nothing like you,” Henry said, his voice was shaking so hard he could hardly get the words out, and he could feel the bile rising in his throat.

“Yes, you are. Give it time, you’ll see,” Adam said, his voice calm and knowing.

“We are nothing alike!” Henry shouted, the words scraping against his throat, every part of him feeling raw and exhausted. He had to make Adam see, had to wipe that knowing look off of his face. “Do you understand me? I am _nothing_ like you!”

Adam looked at him for a long time, silent, as Henry trembled with rage. He shook his head finally in an attitude of defeat, and moved his other hand to cock the gun.

“You disappoint me. Though I don’t know what I expected. You’re so very young. We’ll talk again when you’ve had a chance to grow up. See you around, Henry.”

Adam brought the gun up to his temple.

“What are you doing? No—no!”

Henry took a step forward, but it was too late. Adam fired the gun. Henry flinched and closed his eyes against the deafening bang and the bright flash of the gun’s muzzle. When he had opened them again, all that was left was the gun, lying on the ground.

\-----

By the time Jo made it to the courtyard, the two men were nowhere in sight. She followed the path she’d seen them on. She flicked open the catch on her holster, resting her hand on her gun as she jogged along.

The concrete path cutting across the wide courtyard lawn led towards a loading dock, which had a series of 18-wheeler trailers parked up against three large loading dock rolling doors, nestled up for loading and unloading. There were industrial sized dumpsters for non-medical trash and recycling, and the entire area smelled of the overripe, sickly-sweet odor of garbage and rot, overlaid by dusty paper. A shredding truck was parked nearby, chugging away with a deafening roar as loads of confidential papers were thrown in for shredding disposal. Aside from two men working at the shredding truck, Jo didn’t see any signs of life in the loading dock.

She made her way past the first of the trailers, hand still on the butt of her weapon, but no one was on the other side. She ducked down, looking towards the far end of the loading dock, and there—behind the last trailer, two pairs of legs.

Jo drew her weapon and rounded the next trailer, slowing to make sure her footsteps were as near to silent as she could manage. As she got farther from the din of the shredding truck, she could make out the sound of two male voices.

“You didn’t have to kill her! She’d done nothing!”

“You’re right. I didn’t have to kill her, but I did. She was collateral damage, Henry. In time, you’ll understand. I know you don’t feel this way now, but one day, you’ll even thank me for this.”

Lewis Farber’s voice was eerie and calm, recognizable even though it was flat and harsh, no trace of the affable English accent he’d sported when Jo interviewed him.

Jo crept closer, edging around the end of the trailer. Ten more feet and she’d be able to get a line of sight on the two of them. She ducked down again. Henry’s legs were close to the trailer, as though he had his back pressed to the side, and Farber was facing him.

“We are nothing alike!” In contrast to Farber’s chilly tone, Henry’s voice was shaking, hoarse and frantic. “Do you understand me? I am _nothing_ like you!”

She slunk forward again, the rustle of her clothing painfully loud despite her slow movements. She froze when she heard a distinctive click—the cocking of a gun.

“We’ll talk again when you’ve had a chance to grow up. See you around, Henry.”

“What are you doing? No—no!”

The retort of the gun was deafening and abrupt even as Jo leapt into action, giving up on stealth and charging the last few feet. She rounded the corner and braced herself with a wide stance.

Henry was backed up against the trailer, mouth and eyes wide with shock, hands flat and held out before him in a defensive posture. A gun was lying six feet from him, dropped in the middle of the alley between the trailer and the other end of the loading dock. A quick survey revealed no one else. Farber was gone.

“Where is he?” she demanded. Henry was still frozen, staring at the gun on the ground. “Henry! Where is he? Where’s Farber?”

“He, ah….” Henry pushed himself upright from his braced position against the trailer and staggered to face her, stuttering and blinking rapidly. “He fired into the air. I—I ducked, I closed my eyes and—and then he was gone. He ran.”

Jo moved closer, gun at the ready. The narrow alleyway was empty aside from her and Henry, and the gate at the far side was the only likely exit point. She jogged over and pushed at it, and it swung open. Beyond, another alley leading to the main street beyond. No sign of Farber. He’d only had a few seconds lead, but he’d vanished.

Jo pulled out her phone and dialed the precinct, immediately giving her badge number and the details of her position, and to keep an eye out for Farber. She hung up and tucked it back into her pocket and turned to Henry.

Henry had folded up like a collapsed house of cards, sitting on the filthy pavement and staring into space. Jo crouched down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Henry flinched back from her, but she shushed him, soothing him.

“Hey, it’s okay. He’s not here. I’ve got police on the lookout for him, and we’ve got a protective detail on Abe. We’ll find Farber.”

Henry made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Smears of exhaustion drew heavy lines beneath his eyes, so dark they were like bruises. The instinct to flee was gone, bled out of him along with all the fight and fear. He was staring towards the gun, eyes unfocused.

“He killed her. He killed Abigail.”

“I know, Henry. I know.”

Henry’s breath shuddered and he nodded. She gripped his shoulder and gave it a squeeze, trying to ground him.

She’d remembered a time when she wished there’d been someone she could blame for taking Sean from her, someone to scream at and hate instead of the stupid, pointless death that fate had given him. But there was no solace for Henry in knowing why, or how, or who. Like Sean, Abigail was gone, had been taken from him. Henry, who Jo had spent months thinking him so callous as to not appreciate the value of such love, understood it more keenly than anyone.

Henry’s head fell forward as he cried silently, a hand over his face. She kept her hold on his shoulder until after a minute he wiped his cheeks and hauled himself upright. He looked at her uncertainly, and at her sidearm still in her hand. She holstered it quickly, not wanting to spook him, and Henry tracked the action.

“What happens now?” Henry asked.

His shoulders were pulled back, his stance tall and proud as he faced her, but she knew he didn’t have it in him to run again—not that he needed to. Jo pointed to the gun, an old-fashioned looking number, on the ground. The Mauser they’d been trying to find, if she wasn’t mistaken.

“If I run the ballistics on that gun, I think I’m going to find a match for the gun that killed Abigail.”

“I’m sure you will,” Henry said.

“We have a weapon. We have fingerprints on the gun. We have Farber’s confession in earshot of an officer of the law.” She ticked off the points on her fingers as she spoke. “I think we can figure out a way to make this right. Farber is going to go away for a long time when we catch him.”

“That might be harder than you think,” Henry murmured, almost too low for her to hear.

Jo said nothing, merely put a hand on his shoulder blade and guided him towards the hospital entrance. Henry was entitled to his despair—he’d been through hell the last six months. Her brief reassurance wasn’t likely to change that.

Henry let her take him back to the car without a word, and he sat willingly in the front passenger seat with only a brief hesitant look towards her as she settled into the driver’s seat.

It wasn’t until they were halfway back to the precinct that he spoke.

“Thank you, Detective. For your faith.”

“I’m only doing my job, Henry.”

“And you’re very good at it. You’re damned hard to get rid of.”

She glanced at him, and when she saw his upraised eyebrow and faint smile, she couldn’t keep a stern look on her face any longer.

“Damn straight.”


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Are you going to take off?” Abe asked. Henry was a private man at the best of times, and after all he’d been through, Abe was worried he was about to crawl off into a cave in the Himalayas and stay there for a few centuries._
> 
>  
> 
> _“I don’t know,” Henry said. “Adam is out there somewhere. He knows about you, and certainly seems to have an interest in me. As long as I stay here, I feel as though I’m putting you in danger.”_

“So,” Reece said, scratching her signature across the bottom of Jo’s report, “I send you to catch me an escaped killer and you bring me back an innocent man.”

She flipped to the next page of the report and against slashed another signature across the bottom of it. Jo shifted in her chair, glancing to Hanson at her side, who was slouched down and looking like he’d rather be at home trapped in a room with his kids, both armed with baseball bats, than in Reece’s office.

“Well, the evidence took us—” Jo started.

“ _And_ without bringing back the real killer,” Reece continued. She signed the last page and set her pen down, laced her fingers together and regarded them both.

Hanson managed to scrunch farther down in his chair, if it was possible, and Jo wondered if this was the part Reece had referred to during Jo’s first chat with her—she wasn’t going to cut her any slack.

“Good work.” Reece’s features softened with approval. “We’ll find Farber sooner or later, and in the meantime you’ve saved a man from a frankly disgusting miscarriage of justice. I’m proud of you both.”

“Uh, thanks,” Jo said, trying to mask the depth of her relief. Hanson, who let out an explosive breath and let his head loll backwards with a soft “Thank Christ,” didn’t manage it nearly as well.

Reece handed back the paperwork, this time smiling and chuckling, and Jo took it and they left her office.

“I thought we were going to get it for wasting all that time spent chasing down the gun and re-interviewing all the suspects,” Hanson said, dropping down into his desk chair.

“Turned out not to be a waste, though.”

“I wouldn’t want to be those other guys who worked on Morgan’s file before—they’re going to catch hell. Good instincts, Partner.” Hanson gave her a mock salute, and Jo returned it, then scooted her chair into her desk and returned to her work.

The Mauser had proved to be a match to the ballistics evidence on the gun that had killed Abigail, and with the rest of it, a warrant had been issued for Dr. Farber. As far as they could tell, he’d vanished without a trace—even his wife and children had been left without so much of a hint that he’d been anything other than the mild-mannered psychiatrist. However, a bit of poking into his life revealed that there was no evidence of a Lewis Farber before he met his wife four years ago and begun their relationship in England, shortly before moving to the States for her job. The children were hers, and had been very young when Farber had met her. Jo suspected he’d taken advantage of a lonely single mother to secure a quick and easy marriage, if that had been his intent.

With Reece’s blessing, they’d discreetly swept aside Abe’s involvement with Henry after his escape, which was only evidenced by one photo that was shuffled to the bottom of the large and truly disturbing pile.

Only a few days after turning all their case details over, Henry Morgan’s case was all over the news. There were no such things as secrets in today’s world, and the details of the gun, Farber’s involvement, and the stalking, were spread all over the media.

Jo had watched the news the night before, seen a glimpse of Henry’s tired face as he was shuffled into a courthouse, again surrounded by a circus of activity. This time the story was painted in a different light. A grieving husband, wronged and failed by the justice system. Jo herself, instead of using him as a lightning rod for her own bitter grief over Sean’s loss, pitied him.

No, not pity—empathy. She understood him, now.

In the months since those first reports, Jo had begun to breathe again. Life was moving on, and though she knew she’d never fill the hole that Sean had left, she was starting to believe that maybe she could live with it. She never thought she’d get here, but in the last weeks, she’d found a way through. Maybe it was helping Henry find the truth, finding justice—she didn’t know.

It was progress, at least. She had a life to live, and Sean would have wanted her to try.

Jo tidied the loose papers into the large manila file that was the Morgan case and set a copy of her final report on top of the stack.

It was an unsatisfying end to the case, despite Henry’s being proved innocent. The question of the exploding vehicle that liberated Morgan in the first place was still unsolved and continued to be an open case, with no clues as to who the missing driver had been and where they’d gone.

And, she still had no idea how had Henry survived the fall off the roof of the precinct. She’d asked during his debriefing, but he’d merely shrugged and said, “I’m very resourceful,” and left it at that. The interview had moved on, because among the questions to be asked, it was the least relevant to the larger case. She’d not gotten the chance to ask him privately after the debriefing, as he’d quickly been escorted away for holding until his case was reopened in court.

Jo closed the folder and stood from her chair to go file it away with sharp, determined movements. For her own sanity, she was going to have to let it go and move on.

\-----

Abe found Henry stretched out fast asleep on the couch in the living room, a book open and face-down on his chest. He’d dropped off mid-page, as had been his way in the last week. Abe wondered when Henry had last had a good sleep. He looked permanently exhausted.

Finding out there was another immortal in the world, and one who’d bumped off your wife as a misguided gesture of goodwill, could do that to a man, no doubt.

Henry shifted as Abe moved past him to the armchair, sucking in a breath and blinking awake. He squinted at Abe.

“Sorry to wake you,” Abe said.

“No, no, I shouldn’t be sleeping now.” Henry sat up with a grunt and put his feet on the ground, tossing the book aside and rubbing his face vigorously to wake himself up. “I need to get back to a regular schedule soon.”

Abe said nothing, but they both knew the ridiculousness of Henry’s words. There was no such thing as a regular schedule in Henry’s immediate future. Henry had been notorious again for a brief time, but in the two weeks since he’d surrendered himself, once it was clear the court case was moving on towards an acquittal, the media lost interest in the story and moved on to some other drama of the day, obliterating public interest once again.

Even so, Henry Morgan was a household name, and would be for a while.

“Are you going to take off?” Abe asked. Henry was a private man at the best of times, and after all he’d been through, Abe was worried he was about to crawl off into a cave in the Himalayas and stay there for a few centuries.

“I don’t know,” Henry said. “Adam is out there somewhere. He knows about you, and certainly seems to have an interest in me. As long as I stay here, I feel as though I’m putting you in danger.”

“You can’t let this guy rule the rest of your life, Henry. I’m not. He hasn’t turned up, and I can’t live my life worrying about it.”

“How do you stop an immortal?” Henry stood and paced the living room, stopping to stare out the window at the street below, as though he expected to see Adam lurking there and watching them. “I couldn’t bear to lose you as I lost Abigail.”

“I know. But if you’re here or gone, it doesn’t matter. I’m staying put, and I’m going to keep doing what I do. So, we take it day at a time. And if we’re doing that, let’s do it as a team, huh?”

Abe waited for Henry’s answer, and eventually he turned back to face Abe, nodding reluctantly.

“I suppose you have a point. I moved back to New York to be nearer you, and that hasn’t changed. I don’t like this, but I guess we’ll have to learn to live with it. And, all this fervor will die down eventually, and I still have a while before anyone is going to make comments about my age, if past experience is anything to go by.”

Abe’s shoulders dropped, and Henry smiled a little at Abe’s visible relief.

“Well, good,” Abe said. “I haven’t had a decent chess partner in a long time, so I didn’t want to go and lose that.” Henry chuckled, and Abe gestured to the board in the corner. “Speaking of which, let’s finish that game, shall we?”

Abe went to the table and Henry followed him. He stared down at the board in surprise.

“You never put it away?”

“Nah,” Abe said, sliding into one chair. “Knew you’d be back to finish it. And it may have taken me six months, but I finally figured it out.” Abe slid his knight into position, obliterating Henry’s trap. “Hah!”

Henry made an impressed noise and inclined his head in an approving nod.

“Very nicely done,” Henry conceded. “But you’re not out of the woods yet, Abraham.”

“Less talk, more action,” Abe said, pointing at the chair opposite him.

Henry sat down, with his eyes shining and a sincere smile on his face.

It was a very small start, but someday, somehow, they’d manage to get back to normal. It had been him and Dad as a team right from the start, and so long as Abe had a breath left in him, it always would be.

“Think you’ll go back to the hospital?” Abe asked as Henry contemplated his move.

“No. I don’t think I can.” Henry sighed, his elbow resting on the table and propping up his chin. “But I don’t want to leave medicine. I’ve been a doctor of some kind my whole life. I suppose I’ll have to think about it.”

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

\-----

_As Henry spun Abigail around, the full skirt of her white wedding dress flared out and wrapped around their legs. He watched her laugh, captivated by her beauty._

_She was his wife, he was her husband. He never thought he’d feel this again. She’d brought him to life, just as so many years ago a tiny child in the middle of a cold and endless war had done the same. He glanced over to see Abe at a table, a glass in his hand and a large, happy grin on his face. Abe winked at him, then raised his glass in a toast, and Henry laughed._

_“What is it?”_

_They slowed in their movement as she looked up at him._

_“You,” he said, stroking a hand over her back and holding her close. “I love you. Whatever the point of this long life I’m living, it’s all brought me here. First Abraham, and now you. Everything I’ve done, it’s all been for him—and now, for you. I finally understand that this is what I was meant for, to be here for you.”_

_Her swaying step faltered, as did her smile, and she stopped moving. Confused, he stopped with her. She laid her hands on his chest, smoothing at his tuxedo, then looking into his eyes._

_“I love you more than I can describe, and I’m certain no one could love you more than Abe does. But you were meant for more. Someday we’ll be gone, and you’ll carry on.” She touched his face, running the backs of her fingers along his cheek._

_“Abigail,” he said, frowning. “Please—”_

_“No. Henry, listen to me. No matter how long we have, I will treasure it forever, but you are meant for all manner of great things. Not just us. Promise me that you will remember that.”_

_He meant to object again but she stood on her toes and kissed him, silencing him. As she always did, she soothed away the darkness and the worry, and he kissed her as the music wrapped round them, catching the moment in amber._


	14. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Why a sword?” Hanson continued as they crouched down to get a closer look. “A gun’s easier to use. You can take a gun with you too.”_
> 
> _“It’s not just any sword. It’s the Honjo Masamune, considered to be the most famous sword in the world.”_
> 
> Jo looked up at the sound of the smooth, accented voice she hadn’t really thought she would ever hear again. He crouched down next to her, his gloved hand resting on the victim’s chest near the sword—Henry Morgan, large as life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, it's actually over. This has been almost a year in the making, and we are so incredibly grateful to everyone who has read and reviewed. This has been the most involved and complicated fic either of us has ever worked on, and the fact that it came together like this, and that you've all been so great and supportive in your kudos and comments has been wonderful.
> 
> Thanks for all the love! We'll miss this little AU a lot.

“What happened to the normal murders we used to get, Jo?” Hanson asked as he looked down at the body lying at his feet.

The vic was a well dressed white male in his late 40s. A large Japanese sword stuck out of his chest, the blade arcing in a slight curve out of the wound. Aside from the bloodstain on his white button-up shirt and the sword, his tailored suit was in pristine condition, the dark blue wool well maintained and clearly very expensive.

Jo just shook her head. This was definitely new.

“Why a sword?” Hanson continued as she crouched down to get a closer look. “A gun’s easier to use. You can take a gun with you too.”

“It’s not just any sword. It’s the _Honjo Masamune_ , considered to be the most famous sword in the world.”

Jo looked up at the sound of the smooth, accented voice she hadn’t really thought she would ever hear again. He crouched down next to her, his gloved hand resting on the victim’s chest near the sword—Henry Morgan, large as life.

She’d heard he had gotten a job with the OCME, but hearing it discussed in the break room was completely different than seeing him at one of her crime scenes. His fancy suit was a far cry better than what she had seen him wearing while on the run, and looked a closer match to the victim’s style than either hers or Hanson’s.

The last time she’d seen Henry in person was a year and half ago at the precinct after everyone had finally seen the truth and Henry had been free to go, and media coverage of the story had slipped away as newer and fresher tragedies took over the public’s interest.

“It disappeared after World War II. What is it doing here, now?” Henry said, almost to himself as he examined the body. He unbuttoned the top of the victim’s shirt and lifted up the fabric to get a look at the wound. “It's a clean cut, and it appears to have gone all the way through. That would have taken considerable strength and skill.”

“Not to mention the connections he would have needed to have access to a famous missing sword as a murder weapon,” Jo said, bringing her attention back to the case.

“I’ll see if I can get a list of antiques dealers who would have an idea who might have known the whereabouts of the sword before it ended up in this guy,” Hanson said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. “What did you call it, Doc? The hon…”

“ _Honjo Masamune._ ”

“Tell the Frenchman I said hi,” Jo teased, and Hanson’s face paled. He squared his shoulders, and after one last side-long look at Henry he went off to make his calls.

“I’ll be able to examine the body more closely back at the morgue,” Henry said as he stood up. Jo followed suit and they both stepped away from the body.

“I didn’t expect to see you here. We’ve been working with Dr. Washington lately,” Jo said. Not that she minded. She hadn’t been sure how many more crime scenes she could work with the other M.E., he was as unhelpful as he was unpleasant.

Henry smiled and ducked his head, licking his lip before responding.

“I needed a change, and helping discover the truth seemed a good way to put my knowledge to use.”

Jo smiled back, and wasn’t that just strange? She could still remember chasing him up stairs, across rooftops and halfway around New York City, but it seemed like so long ago.

“You have gained quite the reputation for being able to find the truth where others can’t, Doctor.”

He was the one who’d blazed the trail that led to Dr. Farber, who still remained at large. It didn’t surprise her that the cases Henry was now involved in had the highest solve rate of any M.E. in the city.

“That is a reputation I am happy to stand by,” Henry said, before looking back to the body. “I should be getting back to the morgue. I’d like to start the autopsy right away.”

Jo nodded. As Henry turned away, Jo couldn’t quite let him go just yet. It was weird and new seeing him like this, but it didn’t have to be.

“Wait, Dr. Morgan?”

He turned, his expression open and curious.

“I know this great little bar near the station. Would you like to grab a drink later?”

He narrowed his eyes, turning cautious, then gave an embarrassed little cough, looking like he was trying desperately to dredge up an appropriately neutral response. She couldn’t help her smile at his expense. She had a feeling people didn’t catch Henry Morgan off-guard very often.

“Oh, Detective, thank you, but I’m not—”

“Don’t worry, I’m not hitting on you,” Jo said, lifting her hands up in reassurance and chuckling. “I just thought it might be nice to get to know each other. As co-workers, I mean. I’ll bring some of the others from the station. After all, you’re part of the team now.”

He paused, thinking it over, and then he nodded graciously with a warm smile and a twinkle in his eye.

“Then, yes. Thank you, that would be lovely.”

As he walked away, Jo thought that if they could make it work, this just might be the start of an interesting partnership.

She was willing to bet that there was a lot more to the resilient Dr. Henry Morgan than met the eye.


End file.
